Introduction
We were filled with sanguine hopes that this sum should be laid out in employing European gentleman of talent and education to instruct the natives of India in mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy and other useful sciences which the nations of Europe have carried to a degree of perfection that have raised them above the inhabitants of other parts of the world we looked forward with pleasing hope to the dawn of knowledge thus promised to the rising generation. We find that the government are establishing a Sanskrit school under Hindu pundits to impart the same knowledge as is already current in India... The pupils will be there to acquire what was known two thousand years ago with the addition of vain and empty subtleties since produced by speculative men."" This is Rammohan's letter to Lord Amherst wherein he advocated the teaching of western Maths and science to the Indians. But, Europe learnt maths and every branches of science directly or indirectly from India | Let us probe China is credited with the honour of imparting scientific knowledge of Europe by Joseph Needham of Cambridge. But, history reveals that China is very much indebted to India in this field. Greek Science is not the source of knowledge too. Earlier, it was thought that Greek science was the source of modern science and technology. But, what is the source of Graeco-Roman science? it should not grow on the stony ground of ancient slave society. The technical revolution of the Modern Ages was necessary to prepare the soil of Western Europe to receive the seed and the technical device of printing was necessary to multiply and broadcast the seed before the ancient wisdom could raise a wholesome crops. However, what is the characteristic of the inheritance of Greek science by modern Europe ? G. D. Bernal explains it:- 'It would be a mistake, natural enough in the time of the Renassiance but unpardonable now, to assume that all that happened then was the taking up again of classical culture where it left off, or even where it was at its best. What happened was something different and far more important. The civilization that took over the classical heritage of science had a hard task to prevent themselves from being stifled by it........ There was still, however, the vast store of knowledge to be found in books available to any with the desire or skill to read them. The Syrians and Arabs, and after them the medieval schoolmen and the humanists of the Renaissance, had trace that store step by step back to its Greek originals cultural developments. The very rediscovery of the works of the Ancients managed to absorb and transform it at all was by virtue of their own vigorous was the effect, far more than the cause, of the spurts of intellectual activity that characterised the beginning of islamic science in the ninth century, of medieval science in the twelfth, and of Renassiance science in the fifteenth century. The geographical range of classical culture had largely been limited to the countries of the Mediterranean and of the Near East. Its very completeness formed a barrier to the use of the common stock of techniques and ideas of the other ancient cultures of India and China. With the breakdown of the Roman Empire the way was open to much wider exchange and influences. Thus European cultural area can not give us exclusive information abour the beginning of science in Western Europe. Central and Western Asia had a vital role to play But, to speak more specifically of the technological innovations of the Middle Ages we should appreciate the bold answer of Joseph Needham In the case after case it can be shown with overwhelming probability that the fundamental discoveries and inventions made in China were transmited to Europe, for examples, magnetic science, equatorial celestial coordinates and the equatorial mounting of observational astronomical instruments, quantitative cartography, the technology of cast iron, essential components of the reciprocating steam-engine such as the double-acting principle and the standard interconversion of rotary and longitudinal motion, the mechanical clock, the boot stirrup and the efficient eqise haneses, to say nothing of gunpowder and all that followed therefrom. These many diverse discoveries and inventions had earth-shaping effects in Europe, but in China the social order of bureaucratic feudalism was very little disturbed by them. Joseph Needham, had, in fact, exploded the myth that science exclusively relates to Europe. Dr. J. Bernal proceeds farther to remark boldly that "The technical advance of the Middle Ages was made possible by the exploitation and development of inventions controlling and ultimately of understanding the world and discoveries which, taken together, were to give Europeans power of than they could get from the classical heritage. Significantly, the major invention. were not themselves developed in feudal Europe. All seem to have come from the East, the most of them ultimately from China............the whole concept of the superiority of western Christian civilization is one based on an arrogant ignorance of the rest of the world. With this background we can proceed to discuss the role of India in this field with what Filliozat says: The greatest historian of science have not always escaped from the inconvenience of knowing only one side of matter. Paul Tannery so famous for his studies on ancient mathematics, is an example. We know that the trigonometric sine is not mentioned by Greek mathematician and astronomer, that it was used in India from the Gupta period onwards (third century A. D.).
About the Book
The mathematical implications of zero (sunya) and infinity, never more than vaguely realized by classical authorities, were fully understood in medieval India. Earlier mathematicians had taught that X/0 =X, but Bhaskara proved the contrary. He also established mathematically what had been recognized in Indian theology at least a millennium earlier: that infinity, however divided, remains infinite, represented by the equation 00/X 00." In the 14th century, Madhava, isolated in South India, developed a power series for the arc tangent function, apparently without the use of calculus, allowing the calculation of pi to any number of decimal places (since arctan 1 = pi/4). Whether he accomplished this by inventing a system as good as calculus or without the aid of calculus; either way it is astonishing. Spiritually advanced cultures were not ignorant of the principles of mathematics, but they saw no necessity to explore those principles beyond that which was helpful in the advancement of God realization.
Hindu (932)
Agriculture (122)
Ancient (1098)
Archaeology (777)
Architecture (564)
Art & Culture (920)
Biography (719)
Buddhist (546)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (570)
Islam (244)
Jainism (318)
Literary (888)
Mahatma Gandhi (379)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist