Long Lost Bharat
Today while casually browsing through wikipedia, I came across article on Aryabhata. The only thing I recollect when I think about him is that he was a great mathematician. But I never cared to find, what he were his achievements. Today, when I read about him, I was stunned to find what all he had achieved centuries back in 400AD. The few achievements of Aryabhata:
1) Value of Pi to 4 decimal places and that is it an irrational number.
2) Finding the area of a triangle, values of sin, cos etc
3) The reason why eclipse happen.
4) The movement of the stars as a relative motion caused by the rotation of the earth.
5) Circumference of earth, which is only 0.2% smaller than the actual value
6) The duration of the day, this is only 0.01 sec more than the actual value.
7) The duration of the year, this is only 3 mintues 20 second longer than the actual value.
8) Earth is rotating around its own axis.
9)Aryabhata algorithm to solve first degree Diophantine equations.
These are few of the key achievements of this genius.
I am sure, rarely would anyone know most of these, barring one or two.
I feel so ashamed that we do not know of a person, a genius who was born in India and we are trying to grasp concepts so many foreign scientists. Is there no self pride, is there no value for the achievement of our own people. Are we shy in acknowledging the amazing insight we Indians had, long before the western developed such theories.
And I think of Vedas and I am blank again. We tend to think that Vedas are just religious sculptures, but we are wrong, they have covered all the different walks of life. Social, Economic, Education, Spiritual etc. They are a storehouse of immense knowledge, but we were never exposed to them. We just get some reference in some religious book etc.
India had been so advanced in terms of the knowledge and understanding of the whole universe, and that was because of the adhyatam, the perseverance to seek the truth and the knowledge and the meditation, which helped the great gurus to seek abundance of knowledge and wisdom. Unfortunately, most of us have never been exposed to this side of the Hinduism and were always shown a too religious face of it. Hinduism is not just about God, it is about understanding the deeper self, its about self realization, its about getting more knowledge and wisdom.
I really wish to learn more about Vedas and the ancient India, which is almost forgotten by us, barring a few historians etc.
What do you feel about this? Should us not rejuvenate our old texts and try to understand what they meant. We still have not understood everything which is being stated in Vedas and Purans, and that is why there are different versions of the same, published by different people.
1) Value of Pi to 4 decimal places and that is it an irrational number.
2) Finding the area of a triangle, values of sin, cos etc
3) The reason why eclipse happen.
4) The movement of the stars as a relative motion caused by the rotation of the earth.
5) Circumference of earth, which is only 0.2% smaller than the actual value
6) The duration of the day, this is only 0.01 sec more than the actual value.
7) The duration of the year, this is only 3 mintues 20 second longer than the actual value.
8) Earth is rotating around its own axis.
9)Aryabhata algorithm to solve first degree Diophantine equations.
These are few of the key achievements of this genius.
I am sure, rarely would anyone know most of these, barring one or two.
I feel so ashamed that we do not know of a person, a genius who was born in India and we are trying to grasp concepts so many foreign scientists. Is there no self pride, is there no value for the achievement of our own people. Are we shy in acknowledging the amazing insight we Indians had, long before the western developed such theories.
And I think of Vedas and I am blank again. We tend to think that Vedas are just religious sculptures, but we are wrong, they have covered all the different walks of life. Social, Economic, Education, Spiritual etc. They are a storehouse of immense knowledge, but we were never exposed to them. We just get some reference in some religious book etc.
India had been so advanced in terms of the knowledge and understanding of the whole universe, and that was because of the adhyatam, the perseverance to seek the truth and the knowledge and the meditation, which helped the great gurus to seek abundance of knowledge and wisdom. Unfortunately, most of us have never been exposed to this side of the Hinduism and were always shown a too religious face of it. Hinduism is not just about God, it is about understanding the deeper self, its about self realization, its about getting more knowledge and wisdom.
I really wish to learn more about Vedas and the ancient India, which is almost forgotten by us, barring a few historians etc.
What do you feel about this? Should us not rejuvenate our old texts and try to understand what they meant. We still have not understood everything which is being stated in Vedas and Purans, and that is why there are different versions of the same, published by different people.
posted by Anil.kumar03@gmail.com at
10:51 PM
19 Comments:
I agree we know too little about our own culture and are busy hankering for an alien one. But as long as one stays in this country hung over by colonialism, there is little scope for much interest in the depth of your own culture...and sadly so.
Thanks for dropping by. :)
I dont think your culture has anything to do with 'being hung over by colonialism', especially not in the last few decades - its more about how you perceive yourselves.
Only you can go back and learn about 'great' people, intellects and knowledge from centuries past in the sub-continent. Perhaps many feel inferior culturally and need to embrace globalisation/capitalism or else they get left behind?
Given what i see of indo/pak TV channels aired from the sub-continent here in the UK that is all i observe...a gradual loss of ones own identity.
strictly ... : I guess I have to agree with homosapien, that its not about being colonised, we are free for last 60 years, and that is no spmall a time to bring change in any country in the world. And when we got freedom, we should have had more patriotic feeling, we should have given a deep thought at our culture, our past and we should have tried to educate the youth of this country about it. That lays the foundation of a strong country with nationalistic feeling.
Look at America, when they got freed from England, they changed everything which resembled England. They changed the measuring system from MKS to FPS. they changed cricket to baseball, they changed Soccer to American Football. Coz they wanted their own identity, they wanted their people to form a new identity , and here we are just following the britishers, as much as we can and in turn loosing our basic identity. our past, our vedas, which makes us truely a bhartiya.
But are you following the Brits? I see more Americanisation of Bollywood / Lollywood for example.
Brits ruled in the sense of class - english education was deemed excellent, the accent, its refinement etc. I dont see that from the India/Pakistan on the TV channels broadcast here...and they are coming directly from the Sub-Continent.
As i said, its not colonialism - its the feeling of 'keeping up' with globalisation and capitalism. Afterall, India wants to make it as a next superpower doesnt it? You wont be following the brits for that!
I too share the thought that this is due to colonisation. The British wanted to rule by saying "our things are the best".
Take for example how many Indian languages will survive the next 200 years and how will English be then.
The things that happened to our vedas will happen to languages and our culture soon. They are crores of people who are blindly going the western way.
So many people from many western countries around the world thirst for the wisdom beautiful India has been bestowed with. The history of so many great souls from this land has so much to offer humanity. However, perhaps the Vedas and Upanishads and other such texts should be firstly resurrected within those who hunger for that knowledge.
so true, we know very little. ors is such an intelligent country and culture.so many geniuses have come from India. too sad our children dont know of these things.
Indeed a great mathematician...I am always amazed to know how they did it ?!
**Unfortunately, most of us have never been exposed to this side of the Hinduism and were always shown a too religious face of it.
So true. The Western world dun seem to realise the power of Hinduism..not yet. But recently we r seeing many ppl adapting to Indian culture and beliefs. Isnt that a good sign.
Keshi.
vaik: using the word colonialism, does not hide our errors in bringing out the fabulous past this country had. It was the stupidty on the part of our leaders, who could never give this historic country, its due importance.
starry nights : indeed, its so sad. but lets try to educate ourself, as much as possible. we can pass it to the next generation.
white forest : its , i guess, years of perseverance and a clarity of mind, which can bring in understanding of something so complicated.
keshi : yes unfortunately. but lets try to change our perception and the rest will follow.
I didnt know any of these either.. We tend to look at the so-called 'West' and applause for their acheivements without realising our country has a lot to be proud abt..
:)
..Me
well , he was great
and those who care to know about him do.
whatz unfortunate is that the foreigners claim credit for smthg that is not theirs
i would never agree that the stuff in the vedas must be published and made clear to all . the vedas were written w/ a purpose. those who had the desire to learn would learn ... it was not smthg to be disclosed to all , and still isnt ... itz like saying letz disclose the " indrakshi mantra " to all .. which is a very dangerous thing to do
Its true, we have forget our India's achivement in history. Well writen. i worryed many times, that we are leaving our culture and getting interest on western.
anil
at trivandrum we have been having absolutely fantastic programmes on some of the local channels of late, where real pundits (not the fake sadhus), with a real indepth knowledge of the subject have been giving talks everyday, regarding the Upanishads, the Gita and so on. we also have regular get-togethers, satsangs and so on. its indeed reassuring to know that the new generation is increasingly being provided opportunities to go back to their roots for a change; to seek for facets of a culture that they perhaps never knew, existed!
wikipedia is so amazing isnt it.. i just love it!
its true.. we dont bother to noe much abt our culture, history.. which is so rich..
We try to be conservative in our culture but we do not follow it. I can ask myself, how many times I go to temple or read slokas. To me I feel in hinduism, we do not dictate ourselves what to do and when to do.
As other religious beliefs follow strict rules in their worship and read books, I wonder what it is for me in hinduism.
We have the freedom to learn, but to know the facts, we need to read more and improve our knowledge.
such a pity we do not get to learn of the Vedas and our ancient systems that offer natural healing cures and what not...
Wanted..
An Update!
:)
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