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Institute for Oriental Study, Thane
Seminar on
"India's Scientific Contribution to Europe and other
World Civilizations Prior to Industrial Revolution"
Many eyebrows were raised at the title of this seminar. Deep rooted disbelief that how can earlier civilizations can be contributors to any "Science", as we understand it today? Science means rational, logical, objective thinking, something which did not exist in the earlier people in adequate quantity. The life of these earlier people was governed by religion i.e. superstition, which is inheritantly, devoid of "scientific temper" and 'free will", the hall mark and pre-requisite of scientific development. Once this premise is accepted without debate, then West as birth place of all Science is the forgone conclusion. Religion as anti science is 100% a modern western construct and we need to understand this thoroughly well. Religion in this case is Christian religion and Science means modern Western science. This incompatibility of religion with science in the West automatically gets grafted on non-Western religions and their relation with science. Concept of Religion in West and East differs radically in many respects. In the Western concept of religion, it must have a Prophet and a Book and the followers must abide by the teaching of both. In the eastern religion specially Hinduism, the concept of Dharma , incorporates no single Prophet or book and followers are free to choose , accept or reject philosophy of life, which suits them best. Buddhism and Jainism have their Prophets and books to follow but never restricted their followers to express in Arts and Sciences of their choice. Vatsayana who wrote Kamasutra in 3rd century was never criticized on religious grounds and there are many commentaries written on him till 15th century. Padmasri was a Buddhist monk and wrote a book on erotic and worldly pleasures titled Nagarasarvasva in the 11th century. Many Jain monks authored mathematical and other mundane scientific texts without any conflict with their religious belief. Confucius philosophy as well as Buddhism in China never opposed or restricted their followers from writing scientific treatises. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are Abrahamic or Semitic religions
having continuity at some stage in its emergence, history, spread and
geography, at least in the early stages. In case of Indian civilization
same can be said about Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism etc. This cultural
mooring of Western and Eastern sciences is very important to understand
their contributions to sciences in West and East. Thus contribution
and role of Religion in the development of science in the West and East
are not the same. As statements like all religions are same may be politically
correct but are not true, howsoever we desire so. Insisting universalization
of science in early period of human civilization equally distorts truth
and introduces blunders in the writing of the history of Science of
non Western cultures. It numbs all inquiry of cultural moorings and
thus possible epistemological differences in the creation of ideas or
sciences in different cultures. No wonder then that we try to analyze
or explain Aryabhata's writings in the Euclidian Hypothesis-Proof model.
Nowadays there is a trend of categorizing ideas or sciences of earlier non-western civilizations with 'ethnic' label i.e. ethnic medicine, ethnic mathematics, ethno botany, ethno zoology etc. Many scholars have pursued this research enthusiastically and with great success. However, the 'ethno' prefix automatically alienates these contributions from main stream science development. 'Ethno' prefix carries the baggage of backwardness, tribal, accidental, lacking modern scientific analytical i.e. Newtonian-Cartesian model of inquiry, which has inherited Greek logical, rational, objective methodology to reach any conclusion. Obviously this denies the originality or anteriority of ideas especially when chronology does not favours Western or Greek contributions. The classical example is of invention of Calculus. Madhava, an Indian mathematician of 14th century, in his writings has everything required for the development calculus, which is at least 200 years prior to Newton or Leibniz who is credited for the invention of Calculus. This fact is known to scholars for at least two hundred years now. How it reached Europe can be a matter of further study, but why then Madhava should be denied the credit of his origination? All possible arguments are advanced with great logical and scholarly acrobatic exercise to deny this credit to Madhava. This is a classical example of mind set of most of the past and present history of science scholars and writers, who by 'training' believe that birth of great scientific ideas is 'natural ' in Greek and Western tradition and all search is to establish this 'presumed' hypothesis. As against this, it is 'presumed' that non-Western civilizations lack this ability 'inherently' and on this premise then even if proofs are available, they are given secondary status. Renaissance means going back to roots. West believes to have their
roots in the pre-Christian Greek and then Roman culture and philosophy.
Plato, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Euclid and many other contemporaries
are the architects of this Civilization. Renaissance was a cultural
moment encompassing all facets of human creativity be it arts, science,
religion or philosophy. It is accepted that renaissance is the turning
point in the development of modern science in west. Even arts both fine
and performing and for that matter all other branches of human activity
tried to align themselves to this change. Renaissance movement in the
West is precursor to the Industrial development. Opposition of Christianity
to science from Galileo, Bruno to cloning in modern times is well documented.
Siddhasara of Ravigupta is one of the early Ayurvedic text composed in the middle of the 7th century (650 AD). Half a century earlier (600 AD) we have Vagbhata and half a century later (700 AD) we have Madhava. Siddhasara's translations in Tibetan, Khotanese, Uighur, Turkish, Arabic and Sinhalese are available and well studied. H.W.Bailey published the complete Khotanese text in facsimile in 1938 and in transcription in 1945, which got reprinted in 1969. However, the most extensive study on all Siddhasar manuscripts is done by R.E. Emmerick. After publishing two articles in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1971 and 1974 respectively, he published The Siddhasara of Ravigupta in two volumes in 1980 and 1982. R.E.Emmerick also contributed an article titled 'Ravigupta's Siddhasara in Arabic' in a volume edited jointly by H.R. Roemer and A.Noth published by Brill in 1981. In a obituary written by Mauro Maggi on R.E.Emmeric and published in December 2001 issue of East and West (pp. 408-415) informs us that Emmerick was so much involved in the study of Siddhasara text that he contributed at least forty articles on Indian and Tibetan medicine. His paper 'Ravigupta's Place in Indian Medical Tradition' read in the Second World Sanskrit Conference held at Torino, Italy (9 to 15 June 1975) and published in Indologica Taurinensia ( Vol III-IV, 1975-76, pp. 209-221) provides us valuable information on Ravigupta and also informs us that Madhavanidana is probably mentioned in Firdaws al-Hikma authored by a Arabic scholar, Ali b. Sahl al-Tabari. Very recently Peter Zieme has published an interesting article in 2007 issue of Asian Medicine (Vol. 3, pp.308-322) on Uighur Siddhasara fragments and enriched us with new information on this text. Siddhasara text had widespread influence on Central Asian, Persian and Arabic medical knowledge. Emmerick informs us that Persian and Arabic scholars held Siddhasara in high esteem. Rhazes, a Persian scholar of 9th/10th century wrote a 20 part medical encyclopedia, Kitab al Hawi , which has incorporated many passages from Siddhasara along with Greek, Syriac and early Islamic sources. Faraj Ben Salim a Jewish physician translated Kitab al Hawi into Latin in the 13th century, titled Liber Continens. This text becomes so popular in Latin world that it was reprinted five times till 16th century. Influence of Siddhasar on the development of Western medicine awaits scholarly research. Many Sanskrit medical texts got translated to Persian around 6th century at Gundishpore,Iran and later into Arabic in the 9th/10th century in Baghdad, Iraq. During the same period Astronomical and Mathematical Sanskrit texts were getting translated into Persian first and then into Arabic. One such minor Indian text concerned only with poisons authored by Shanaq got translated to Persian by a physician called Mankah in the 9th century. Abu Hatim translated it from Persian to Arabic during the same time and called it Kitab al-Shanaq. Shanaq's text on poisons was used extensively by ibn Wahashiya in composing his much acclaimed 'Book on Poison'. Along with Greek source ibn wahshia also informs us of other Indian authors like Tammashah and Bahlindad whos books he used while composing his book on poisons. Ibn Wahashia wrote many other books but his book on poisons remained as referral work for many centuries. Ibn ai-Nadim author of Fihrist knew Shanaq and he informs us about Shanaq's works on conduct of life, the management of war and on cultural studies. Another scholar ibn abi Usaibi'a tells us about Shanaq's works on stars,lapidary and one on veterinary science. Unfortunately we do not have his original Sanskrit or Arabic translations of these works. As far as Shanaq's text on poisons is concerned, he follows Sushruta. Martin Levey translated ibn Wahshiya's Book on Poisons and published it in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 56, No. 7, 1966, pp.1-130. Recent Archaeological findings have forced us to rethink our early
assumptions of origin of many material objects like silk, cotton, tick,
pottery, spices, perfumery, beads, diamonds and botanical products.
Obviously their place in respective cultures, trade and manufacturing
technology and skills unfolds a new scenario of cultural history.China
had monopoly on silk till this date. Recent paper titled 'New evidence
for Early Silk in the Indus Civilization' published in the 2009 issue
of Archaeometry , Vol.50., will compel us to change this perception
of origin of silk. Earliest export of silk from china dates back to
early second century BC during the reign of Han Emperor Wu-ti, though
archaeologist in China have found isolated find from the Liangzhou Neolithic
site of Qianshanyang dating back to 2570 BC. Archaeologists were puzzled
with silk found in sites at Mediterranean, Egypt, Central Asia and also
at a late prehistoric Celtc site in Germany dating back to 700 BC, much
earlier to Wu-ti trade relationship with the West began. It was taken
for granted as export from China without having given thought to the
possibility of silk production indigenously or from regions other than
China. In India itself A.N.Gulati in 1961 wrote an article 'A note on
the early history of silk in India' in a publication of Deccan College,
Poona titled Technical Reports on archaeological remains,pp.51-59 producing
evidence of silk from a bead thread from Nevasa, Maharashtra, dating
back to 1500 BC. The new archaeological evidence of Silk from the Indus
civilization sites at Harappa and Chanhu-daro pushes back the silk production
outside China at least by a millennium earlier. Authors of the paper
in Archaeometry have concluded, Indian and Greeko- Roman trade contacts are well documented. Writings
of travelers and geographers , ranging from 1 /2nd century BC to 3/
4th Century AD, like Natural History of Pliny, Strabo and Geography
of Claudius Ptolemy, Periplus of the erythraean Sea by an anonymous
author all have been describing India and Indian products elaborately.
Emperor Justinian who reigned around 533 AD had composed a list of about
54 dutiable articles entering Alexandria. This includes many products
like hair, drugs and animals from India by name and even eunuchs. Recent
archaeological findings also have endorsed contacts with Mesopotamia
going back to third millennium BC. India is known to have been exporting
spices, diamonds, cotton, silk etc for the last 5000 years now. Indian
tick wood was favorite and most suitable for ship building. This has
been confirmed by study of wood found in many shipwrecks from Indonesia,
Middle Eastern and Mediterranean ports. A recent paper titled ' A ninth-century
AD Arab or Indian shipwreck in Indonesia; first evidence for direct
trade with China' by Michael Flecker published in World Archaeology
Vol.32, No.3, Shipwrecks(Feb.2001),pp. 335-354 States, Trade is never restricted only to the material exchanges. Along with
culture, scientific information also migrates. Indian influence in South
East Asian countries is well known. Excellent example of this migration
is seen in the Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia. Measurements of the temple
are related to Hindu religious symbolism and mathematical Astronomy.
An article in the Science Vol.193, No.4250, 23 July, 1976 titled 'Astronomy
and Cosmology at Angkor Wat' explains this elaborately, In an exhaustive article by Grant Parker titled ' Ex Oriente Luxuria:
Indian commodities and Roman Experience' published in the Journal of
the economic and Social History of the Orient, 2002, Vol.45, No.1, pp
40-95, has thrown light on many dark corners of this trade. While commenting
on meager Indian craft goods found in Roman world, his following observations
are interesting, In the same paper on p.64 Grand Parker informs us more on documentary
and inscriptional evidence found in the West, Surprisingly we see this 'legal trade document tradition' continued till 12th century. A huge collection of documents was unearthed in Egypt from the Cairo Genizah. They catalogue the social, cultural and religious lives of Jews around the Mediterranean basin. They have documents related to Jews from India, involved in the Mediterrian trade. S.D.Goiten worked extensively on these documents and published many articles- ' From the Mediterranean to India: Documents on the trade to India, South Arabia, and East Africa from the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries' published in Speculam, XXIX(1954),181-197, 'From Eden to India, specimens of the Correspondance of Indian Traders of the Twelfth Century, published in Journal of the Economic and Social history of the Orient,Vol.23,no1/2(April.,1980),pp 43-66 and 'Portrait of a Medieval Indian trader: Three Letters from the Cairo Geniza' published in Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African studies Vol.50, No.3(1987), pp. 449-464. These articles give us valuable information on Indian trade activity in the 11th and 12th century in the Mediterranean Basin. Nicole Bovin and D.Q.Fuller in their recent paper titled 'Shell Middens, Ships and seeds: Exploring Coastal Subsistence. Maritime trade and the Dispersal of Domesticates in and Around the Ancient Arabian Peninsula' published in J World Prehist (2002) 22:113-180 informs us about agriculture, animals of Indian origin and pepper, which is going to confirm earlier observations and pre-date the Indian history of trade with west. "Around 1200 BC, the first pepper appears in the Egyptian record, positively identified from the dried fruits in the nostrils of the mummy of Ramses II (Plu 1985). This is the first indication of possible contact between Egypt and India, though by what route remains unclear. While its royal association attests to the rarity and high value of this spice at this period, it also can be taken to suggest the possible early beginnings of direct South Asian to Red Sea spice trade."(pp. 153-154) "It is in the context of the intensifying trade between Gujarat and Arabia at the start of the second millennium BC that we should probably consider the beginnings of contact between Africa and South Asia. The evidence of African crops, which are unambiguously in Gujarat and Baluchistan in this period, suggests that Gujarat maritime contacts were no longer only with Oman and Dilman but also extended further westwards around Arabia towards Yemen and Africa. At present count, some 33 archaeological sites in South Asia dating from the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000 BC) through the Iron Age (to c. 300 BC) have evidence for crops of African origin for which botanical identity is acceptable (Table 3;data augmented from Fuller 2003a; with Chanchala 2002; Cooke et al. 2005; Saraswat 2004, 2005; Saraswat and Pokharia 2003). In almost all instances, these crops co-occur with native Indian millets and pulses, and can be seen as additions to an existing system of summer monsoon agriculture (Fuller and Madella 2001; Weber 1998, 342-344). Only in the case of Pirak was Sorghum, together with rice (plausibly japonica rice) and Panicum miliaceum (one of the Chinese millets), added to the established Indus repertoire of winter crops."(Pp.155-159) "The other domesticate which moved between the Indian subcontinent and Africa, probably via Arabian maritime links, was the South Asia-derived zebu cattle (Bos indicus).That zebu cattle spread from South Asia to Arabia and Africa is not in doubt, and a maritime route is suggested by genetic data. Marshall (1989) speculated that this could have occurred in the second millennium BC as a counter flow to African crops that moved to Asia. Genetic data show a pattern of inter-regional introgression in which eastern and southern Africa, together with the Arabian peninsula near Africa, show a genetic cline, especially in Y-chromosome data, that indicates much higher zebu bull input than is the case for Mesopotamia and more northerly areas (Hanotte et al. 2002; Zeder 2006). Nevertheless, there was also clearly overland movement of zebu cattle from the Indus through Iran towards the Near East (Kumar et al. 2003)," (pp.159) Usually spices and diamonds are labeled or discussed as exotic products,
which is not true. Grant parker in his Ex Oriente Luxuria gives some
interesting uses of pepper, However, in India we know that most of the spices are also used in
Ayurvedic preparations. Similarly use of diamond as tool in cutting
other diamond or hard object and in the technology of engraving is known
to Indians since antiquity and is even practiced today in Gujarat. Leonard
Gorelick and A.John Gwinnett in their paper titled 'Diamonds from India
to Rome and Beyond' published in American Journal of archaeology, Vol.
91, No.4 (1988) pp. 547-552 informs us, Excavations in the last quarter of twentieth century at Quseir al-Qadim
(preliminary reports published by American Research Center in Egypt,
Cairo in 1979) and at Egypt's Red Sea port Berenike (preliminary report
started appearing since 1995, published by Leiden:Research School CNWS)
has revealed many new objects, confirming our early findings of Indian
trade with Greco-Roman world. Using textile products of Indian origin
and Indian teak found in the Excavation at Berenike, Grant Parker wrote
another very interesting article titled ' Topographies of Test: Indian
Textile and Mediterranean Contexts in Ars Orientalis, Vol. 34, 2004,
pp. 19-37 ( almost all articles in this volume are on Indian Ocean trade).
His findings not only confirm the observations of earlier writers but
also inform us the high degree of technology reached in Indian subcontinent
in cultivating and manufacturing these goods for local consumption as
well as for export. Parker writes in the article, Hindu mathematical and other scientific manuals started migrating to
Iran and Iraq from 6th to 10th century. Hundreds of them got translated
to Persian and Arabic languages. The process of Latin translation of
these Arabic and Persian texts started from 11th century onwards. Indian
mathematics and other sciences reached Europe through this translation
industry. Trade played a vital role in this migration. However, it is
least studied and its contribution is totally neglected. In the same
volume of Ars Orientalis (Vol. 34, 2004) Carol Bier wrote an article
titled ' Patterns in Time and Space: Technologies of Transfer and the
Cultural Transmission of Mathematical Knowledge across the Indian Ocean.'
And in his own words, Agriculture and Horticulture are other important activities in any
culture or civilization. Newer techniques of Archaeobotany are giving
us new tools in dating. Mehergarh, Baluchistan excavations have placed
barley and wheat cultivations in Indian subcontinent around 7000 to
5500 BC. Recent findings of the Archaeobotanical samples collected from
Neolithic site Jhusi, at the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna rivers in
Allahabad U.P. are presented jointly by Anil K. Pokharia, J.N.Pal and
Alka Srivastava in an article titled ' Plant macro-remains from Neolithic
Jhusi in Ganga Plain: evidence for grain-based agriculture', in the
Vol.97,No. 4, 25 august 2009 issue of Current Science. We already have
the dates of cultivated rice from Kunal, Hariyana in the range of 3000
to 2500 BC. Rice grains collected at Jhusi have given us dates in the
range of 7100 to 5932 BC. These are probably the earliest dates of rise
grains in at least Indian subcontinent. Their findings of viticulture
or horticulture are more revealing, Sugarcane cultivation is indigenous to India. We have extensive literary
evidence for this. We have testimony of Greeks in this regard. They
described sugarcane as 'reeds that make honey without the agency of
bees' Megasthenes goes a step forward and even tries to explain why
sugarcane is sweet? Surprisingly there is no trace of sugarcane in any
archaeological excavations in the subcontinent. Lallanji Gopal has written
an excellent paper titled 'Sugar-making in Ancient India' published
in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol. 7,
No. 1, 1964, pp. 57-72. He gives us literary evidence of highly advanced
stage of cultivation it had reached, Panchatantra and the game of Chess are Indian contributions which reached
East and West, as early as 3rd to 6th century AD. I have dealt with
Panchatantra in my paper 'History of migration of Panchatantra and what
it can teach us' presented last year in the conference titled Subhashita,
Panchatantra andGnomic Literature in Ancient and Medieval India held
at Thane under the auspices of Institute for Oriental Study, Thane on
Saturday, 27 Dec. 2008 at Thane http://orientalthane.com/speeches/speech2008.htm Dominance and universalization of modern science gives a hegemonic status to West. Colonization of rest of the world by Western countries since 16th century added to this hegemony. 'Orientalism' is the final outcome of this process. Study of Indian civilization i.e. Indology is no exception to this 'academic exercise'. Poor financial recourses and inadequate research training facilities in the non West world in the post Colonial period, enhances this dependency on West. No civilization or culture for that matter can claim exclusivity. However, though Indian trade with West was always bilateral, when it comes to influence or anteriority of ideas, pointer is unidirectional, always in the direction of Mesopotamia or Greece. Transmission of Indian sciences to Europe prior to Industrial revolution is not easy to understand. Trade, as seen by us earlier, has played a major role in this transmission. Extensive literary and archaeological material is available now for this study. However, Indian trade was not restricted to the West only. Buddhism had reached China and Central Asia few centuries prior to the beginning of Christian era. Indian trade and culture had also reached South East Asian countries since the beginning of Christian era. Hundreds of philosophical, religious and scientific text from Sanskrit got translated to Chinese, Khotanese, Uighur, Tibetan and South Eastern languages. Trade route of West to China passed through Central Asia. We have seen that many Chinese and Central Asian texts original and translated both, reached Western civilizations through this trade route. As a matter of fact Sanskrit-Persian/Arabic -Latin transmission started much later than Sanskrit-Chinese-Central Asian-Greek/Latin transmission. Last route of transmission is after 16th century through missionary and Colonial administrators' writings. A collective and comprehensive study of all these inter disciplinary sciences including paleo and archaeobotany, archaeozoology and genomic studies will help us reach conclusions with least bias. Vijay Bedekar Saturday, 26 December 2009, Thane. |