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Ancient Indian Texts

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Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#71

Post by curiosity1 »

nu2ycombinator wrote: post #33
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.

Why indeed, And also why to spend time and money on exploring the archeological places and rebuilding old ancient machines? In short it interests some people and it gives clear picture of how knowledge evolved. It does not need to be advanced than the current technologies.

"its out of curiosity and to attain peace" -- for a person. Nobody really knows what everybody else is into. Not everything interests everyone.

There are certain people (or very few tv shows) who re-build ancient machines which might not be needed in the current age. Because we acquire knowledge enough to live in a point-of-time.

Money is just "to get things done". Not sure if everyone gets it.

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#72

Post by nu2ycombinator »

curiosity1 wrote: post #71
nu2ycombinator wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why indeed, And also why to spend time and money on exploring the archeological places and rebuilding old ancient machines? In short it interests some people and it gives clear picture of how knowledge evolved. It does not need to be advanced than the current technologies.

"its out of curiosity and to attain peace" -- for a person. Nobody really knows what everybody else is into. Not everything interests everyone. There are certain people (or very few tv shows) who re-build ancient machines which might not be needed in the current age. Because we acquire knowledge enough to live in a point-of-time. Money is just "to get things done". Not sure if everyone gets it.

Amen. you echoed my thoughts, but able to put it in good english. :)

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#73

Post by mayanksinghal »

pramalin wrote: post #70
s-topper wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Definitely a Hindutva site. And, your point is? That site also has collections about works of legit ancient Indian mathematicians, Vedas etc. So, you are going to disregard them because they're Hindus? If somebody mentions about these things, then they're said to be peddling this so called Hindu propaganda. Now, THAT'S a real propaganda.

It is really pathetic to see how people try to defend their fundamental beliefs without any substance. People are brainwashed to believe that vedic scriptures are full of knowledge (I was a victim too. I used to recite some parts of the scriptures like purusha suktam). In reality, the scriptures are filled with filth like procedures of sacrificial, bestiality and orgy rituals, calls upon gods to slaughter their enemi…

> What is legit or scientific about it?

Nothing. And no one here is claiming that all parts of these texts are to be taken as absolute fact with empirical proof. Most of it, as you mention, is riddled with imaginary stories probably because scientific discovery was being carried out by religious philosophers of that time.

However, there are parts of these texts that are legitimately impressive, philosophically or scientifically - and a blanket denial of that would be just as unjust as the 'filth'.

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#74

Post by kamaal »

smoyer wrote: post #37

Yep ... I know that eye glasses and cataract surgery were done there first (the ruined lens was poked out of place with a copper wire, then a pair of glasses became the primary lens and the cornea became the secondary lens). And obviously you needed to be able to produce glass to make eye glasses. There was also early production of stainless steel. I'm not as well-versed in Indian history as I should be ... with that…

>>you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead?

One word, Entropy!

As an Indian, I can tell you India has seen many cycles of ups and downs. And its not just mere technical culture, there is tons of other things. Food, literature, language, poetry, food, clothes, music, religions, philosophy and what not. I don't know any other country in the world comes close to matching this. Buddha arrived in India in around 500 BC. And that was one of India's peak times in Spiritual and philosophical tradition.

There are languages that are totally extinct, cultures that have faded away. Massive amounts of literature lost completely to mankind.

But Mainland India has been invaded many times, colonized, bulk of its wealth plundered. Add to this the overall entropy of the system.

A simple question to you would be like this. Can you be sure US will remain the world super power 200 years from now.

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#75

Post by eklavya »

kamaal wrote: post #74
smoyer wrote: post #37

Yep ... I know that eye glasses and cataract surgery were done there first (the ruined lens was poked out of place with a copper wire, then a pair of glasses became the primary lens and the cornea became the secondary lens). And obviously you needed to be able to produce glass to make eye glasses. There was also early production of stainless steel. I'm not as well-versed in Indian history as I should be ... with that…

>>you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead? One word, Entropy! As an Indian, I can tell you India has seen many cycles of ups and downs. And its not just mere technical culture, there is tons of other things. Food, literature, language, poetry, food, clothes, music, religions, philosophy and what not. I don't know any other country in the world comes close to matchi…

A small correction there, Buddha WAS from India :)

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#76

Post by eklavya »

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…

Maybe you are being too skeptical, maybe he is just feeling proud? Is it fanatical to feel proud of your nation, don't you guys love yours?

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#77

Post by xerophtye »

monsterix wrote: post #48
shas3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>from Egypt to Indonesia (Hindu kingdoms spanned that far, yes!).

wait, what?? Clear to elaborate? I know alexander had a huge kingdom, i know gnehis khan conquered a very very large area of land. I know muslims had an ENORMOUS empire but this looks like news to me. So clear to elaborate? Specifics?

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#78

Post by dschiptsov »

Ancient texts should be considered as a philosophy rather than science, because almost nothing was formally proved that time, but lots of phenomena were correctly inferred or guessed.

Most famous insights, of course, were these about the nature of mind from the Upanishads, which uses state of sleep, deep-sleep (without dreams) and wakefulness as metaphors to illustrate what we now call "models of the world", "contexts", "cognitive dissonance", "frames of reference", or just the role of the mind (consciousness) in cognition - how we constantly distort, reinterpret and even ignore perceived reality.

Roughly, it was a notion clarified later by Buddha - "Life is shaped by our mind, we become what we think", the notion that all our (at least psychological) "suffering" begins (and ends) inside our skulls and doesn't exist in the world outside.

Another great notion was one of the Dzongchen sect of Tibetan Bon tradition, when they use analogy of a mirror to how our mind should "work" - as a mirror isn't affected by what it reflects, so the mind in its "primordial" (original, such that of a child) state is just a "tool" to "do everything", including things done by Buddha or Einstein.

More recent marvels from India including "Want to see a God - look between two thoughts" by "modern" saint Ramakrishna, which is "in continuum" back to Upanishads.

In short, in decent texts composed by highly intelligent authors (including so-called fiction) there is a possibility to find correct inferences and guesses for almost every observable phenomena, if your own mind is lucid enough.

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#79

Post by laichzeit0 »

Jonovono wrote: post #17

This is neat! Thanks. I have wanted to learn Sanskrit for a long time, and I think the stuff you could read after learning that would be interesting. And then there is NASA (apparently) using Sanskrit for AI: http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/sanskrit-nasa.html

As someone who put in the years required to learn Classical Latin and Attic Greek I can but only heed you to make very, very sure you are willing to invest the enormous amount of time required to learn an ancient language.

If you have a normal job, wife and children, and can't find at minimum 2 hours out of your day to dedicate to language study, then don't bother. You will never read any Sanskrit at a comfortable pace if you can't commit to such an investment. I'm talking about picking up a book and not hitting an unknown word 3 times a sentence. You'll need at minimum 2 years of a full time schedule like before it even becomes fun.

It's the unfortunate and sad reality about the time commitment required in learning ancient languages to the level of fluency.

Re: Ancient Indian Texts

#80

Post by s-topper »

pramalin wrote: post #70
s-topper wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Definitely a Hindutva site. And, your point is? That site also has collections about works of legit ancient Indian mathematicians, Vedas etc. So, you are going to disregard them because they're Hindus? If somebody mentions about these things, then they're said to be peddling this so called Hindu propaganda. Now, THAT'S a real propaganda.

It is really pathetic to see how people try to defend their fundamental beliefs without any substance. People are brainwashed to believe that vedic scriptures are full of knowledge (I was a victim too. I used to recite some parts of the scriptures like purusha suktam). In reality, the scriptures are filled with filth like procedures of sacrificial, bestiality and orgy rituals, calls upon gods to slaughter their enemi…

It is really pathetic to see how people are quick to snub off anyone or anything that's related to Hinduism, ancient Hindu works, scriptures etc as propaganda, brainwash etc. Is it some kind of reverse propaganda??

>>>You can also see that the site claims that Jyotish is astronomy but it actually means astrology.

Where? They do mention it as "astrology".

>>>In reality, the scriptures are filled with filth like procedures of sacrificial, bestiality and orgy rituals, calls upon gods to slaughter their enemies (who have stolen their herds), etc.

>>>29. [Saturn] has an emaciated and long physique, has tawny eyes, is windy in temperament, has big teeth, is indolent and lame and has coarse hair.

What is legit or scientific about it?

Have you heard of mythology, euhemerism, and personification? Out of all those stuff on that site, you zeroed-in on sacrificial rituals, description of Saturn, and dismissed everything as "filth"? Then, what is your say on Ganit Shastra, Kaam Shastra, Khagol Shastra to name a few?

Based on that logic, all these below must be filth and their sole purpose is to brainwash people:

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

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

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

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

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

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