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Ancient Indian Texts

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Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

memracom wrote: post #39
seiji wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics - Concepts of atom and theory of relativity were explicitly stated by an Indian Philosopher around 600 BC. Looks pretty accurate to me. All the best science comes from philosophers backed by feelings and visions instead of math.

Problem is that anyone could come up with the concept of the atom, and even relativity is not beyond the bounds of possibility. We are all genetically identical to the earliest Homo Sapiens who left Africa. And the ones who stayed in Africa. Any one of those people who had the fortune to have a life of diverse experience and the spare time needed to think about things, would have discovered any number of supposedly m…

> Problem is that anyone could come up with the concept of the atom, and even relativity is not beyond the bounds of possibility. We are all genetically identical to the earliest Homo Sapiens who left Africa. And the ones who stayed in Africa.

The last sentence is manifestly not true (we're not even genetically identical to each other, much less all of us to the earliest example of H. Sapiens, or even the earliest examples of H. Sapiens sapiens.)

And even if it was, the first doesn't follow from it: intellectual capacity may have an upper bound set by genetics, but realizing it is more than genetics, its environment starting in the vary early environment.

And nutrition is, manifestly, a big part of that.

> The only real advantage that we have today is the law of large numbers and the network effect.

And lots of other things; to name just one key one, the adoption of the scientific method which does a lot to help identify the useful ideas from the attractive-but-useless ones. Even if we were no better at thinking up ideas, we are a lot better at validating ideas, and its not just through numbers, its through approach. Because of an idea that was thought up, and widely adopted.

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#42

Post by s-topper »

unmole wrote: post #2

Interesting collection. Disappointed to see the typical Hindu apologist, revivalist nonsense in the description though. Edit: What I mean by typical: http://youtu.be/RSHFzZmQPj0

CTRL+F - hindu - 0 results in home page. Where is the "nonsense" that you're talking about?

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#43

Post by markshepard »

seiji wrote: post #29
markshepard wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he he. In fact every group claim that the "ancients" already knew "everything" but we just forgot about it and rediscovering it..

Well, The Ancients did know a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate)

lol . touche!

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#44

Post by s-topper »

pramalin wrote: post #16

//Ancient India was a land of sages, saints and seers as well as a land of scholars and scientists. Rishis were the sages who built our great culture. They devoted their life, energy and experience for the welfare of people. They wrote Vedas - the manual of vibrations. Following this many field of science evolved in India. // This is typical hindutva propaganda, where they claim that anything and everything originate…

>>>>Before buying into it, I would suggest the readers to review the works of Dr. Ambedkar such as Riddle In Hinduism. http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/

You're saying fight one "propaganda" with another "propaganda"? LOL!

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#45

Post by chattoraj »

yarou wrote: post #35

I'm really confused by the comments that say the tone of this site is "Hindu nationalist". I see no mention of the word "Hindu" in the entire page. In fact, it's as far from politicized text as possible. Not everything on the web has some hidden meaning or subtext.

The site has a page on "Vimanika shastra"[1] ("Science of Flying Machines"), which is known to be a bullshit text from the 20th century[2].

Definitely a Hindutva site.

[1] https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/aeronautics

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaim%C4%81nika_Sh%C4%81stra

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#46

Post by markshepard »

seiji wrote: post #7
managuru wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - why dig up ancient books that did not stand the test time? Just go forward with what is present and focus on future.

When these issues come up, there's always a vague "comes from india" contingent willing to riot and avenge their country over the fact they are the best at everything. (Don't bring up any discussions about infosys, else you'll be inundated with how great and expansive they are.) Maybe it's because such a huge population actually has an origin place and story going back quite far? I don't have an origin. I come from s…

yes, there is always the "we invented zero" gang that jump up during these types of discussion.. To be fair, this is not a India specific thing but the chip-in-the-shoulder contingent that exists in every tribe ...

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#47

Post by demodifier »

s-topper wrote: post #42
unmole wrote: post #2

Interesting collection. Disappointed to see the typical Hindu apologist, revivalist nonsense in the description though. Edit: What I mean by typical: http://youtu.be/RSHFzZmQPj0

CTRL+F - hindu - 0 results in home page. Where is the "nonsense" that you're talking about?

In general, when talking about pre-Islamic India to an Indian audience the word Hindu is not always used explicitly since Hindu culture was the dominant culture in that period and there is no need to distinguish it from any competing culture except in special circumstances. The claims of greatness of culture spread though out the site refer to a period such as this.

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#48

Post by monsterix »

shas3 wrote: post #11
pflats wrote: post #6

If you take a look at the math subsection ( https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/math ) be aware that Brahmagupta was a beast of a mathematician. His sucessors, the two Bhaskaras, were ridiculously good as well. Their names aren't nearly as big as any of the European mathematicians you know, but they were powerhouses of math during Europe's dark ages. Brahmagupta was pretty much the first recorded dude to use…

The 'problem' with Indian math was the general aversion (or ignorance) of the importance of the method of proof. The more well known works of Greek mathematics were great in emphasizing the importance of the concept of mathematical proof. Yet, Greek mathematics, with the exception of Archimedes and Diophantus had an aversion for arithmetic (especially the concept of infinity and infinitesimals) and algebra and an ove…

> vastu shastra, which is astrological woo.

I'd give you that in its current marketed form it is astrological bullshit, but originally Vastu Shastra was a formal form of science [1] grounded on engineering principles and urban design. All persevering to obtain a 'calm' for the dweller.

One can still infer from the high precision N-S-E-W positioning of fairly huge ancient Hindu temples, historical remains of homes and dwellings, monasteries and other artefacts. Even the 1000+ step staircases in some of the forts and fortresses [2][3], transoceanic bridges [4] suggest the quality of math that was in play.

The choice and placement of stone, wood and metal w.r.t Sun, tropical climate and other ergonomic needs is simply mind blowing. Math has to be at the root of it.

Obviously not many records exist to substantiate the level of skill and academia prevalent at the time. I wish someone undertook a journey to research and substantiate just about "everything" that we have from Egypt to Indonesia (Hindu kingdoms spanned that far, yes!). At the risk of being shooed away by existing pride.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastu_shastra

Even the wikipedia here, for example, says ... "while Vastu had long been essentially restricted to temple architecture..." which is completely wrong, and they defeat it in the third paragraph where they define "the Sanskrit word vastu means a dwelling or house with a corresponding plot of land" which is what Vaastu Shastra was all about, not temples alone.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChandBaori.jpg

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chand_Baori

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam%27s_Bridge

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#49

Post by [deleted] »

djdj123 wrote: post #23

You may have picked up on the author's not-so-subtle self-congratulation in the use of the phrase: "our great culture". There is a lot of wonderful material to be absorbed in the ancient texts of India, but the text of that page has a strong Hindu religious nationalist tone (which in Indian languages is called "Hindutva", or "Hindu-ness"). The vast (in time and space), and diverse Indian culture that produced these w…

[deleted]

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#50

Post by sn41 »

shas3 wrote: post #11
pflats wrote: post #6

If you take a look at the math subsection ( https://sites.google.com/site/ancientbharat/math ) be aware that Brahmagupta was a beast of a mathematician. His sucessors, the two Bhaskaras, were ridiculously good as well. Their names aren't nearly as big as any of the European mathematicians you know, but they were powerhouses of math during Europe's dark ages. Brahmagupta was pretty much the first recorded dude to use…

The 'problem' with Indian math was the general aversion (or ignorance) of the importance of the method of proof. The more well known works of Greek mathematics were great in emphasizing the importance of the concept of mathematical proof. Yet, Greek mathematics, with the exception of Archimedes and Diophantus had an aversion for arithmetic (especially the concept of infinity and infinitesimals) and algebra and an ove…

This criticism of aversion to proofs is in general valid. However, be aware that Indians also made some significant steps towards calculus, and the first book explaining this had "arguments" and worked out examples. (This is not second hand knowledge, I know the language and have a copy of one volume of the book.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuktibh%C4%81%E1%B9%A3%C4%81

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_school_of_astronomy_and_...

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