How IndiaEnrichedThe World!

with her knowledge, innovations & education

TM

pays tribute to Indian innovations

As a founder of a brand new organizationthat promotes Indian education, the last fewmonths have convinced me that people ingeneral, even my fellow citizens of thecountry, are yet to appreciate the enormityand variety of gifts that India has enrichedthe mankind with.

A brief discussion with Amritava of Ad RemCommunications, my Santa Claus of variousdesigning needs and marketing planning,got us into compi l ing importantcontributions from India that revolutionisedthe way humans exist today. The outcomeis extremely impressive and I believe it willadd great value to our understanding ofIndia.

India Educates is privileged to foray into thefield of apprising the world, how India‘educates’. We sincerely believe India doesn’tlimit herself to studies only. People deserveto know what galaxy of opportunities arewaiting in India for aspiring learners.This e-booklet, I hope, will assist you infinding renewed energies to engage morecohesively with India or India Educates andwil l encourage you to spot moreopportunities in India.

Warm regards,

Pratik Tarafdar

“India is, the cradle of the human race,

the birthplace of human speech,

the mother of history,

the grandmother of legend,

and the great grandmother of tradition.

Our most valuable and most

instructive materials in the history

of man are treasured up in India only."

Mark Twain

TM

Foreword

1

Mat

hem

atic

s A lesson that counts!

"We owe a lot to the Indians, whotaught us how to count, withoutwhich no worthwhile scientificdiscovery could have been made."Albert Einstein

Indians were the first to depictzero as a symbol and use it inmathematical operations. Inaround 500 AD Aryabhatta gavea representation for zero (0).

Indian gave an identity to Zero!

The decimal number system in use today wasfirst recorded in Indian mathematics. Indianmathematicians made early contributions to thestudy of the concept of negative numbers,arithmetic, and algebra. In addition, trigonometrywas further advanced in India, and, in particular,the modern definitions of sine and cosine weredeveloped here.

The Baudhayana Sulbasûtra isnoted for containing severalearly mathematical results,including an approximation ofthe square root of 2, value ofpi and the statement of aversion of the Pythagoreantheorem.

In the 14th century, Indianmathematician Madhavadiscussed components ofcalculus which later on evolvedas Taylor series and infiniteseries approximations.

TM

2

Nalanda was a centre oflearning from the fifthcentury to twelveth century.Historians often termNalanda as a university.

The liberal cultural traditionsinherited from the Gupta ageresulted in a period ofgrowth and prosperity untilthe ninth century.

At its peak, the schoolattracted scholars andstudents from near and farwith some travelling all theway from Tibet, China,Korea, and Central Asia.

Seat

s of

Lea

rnin

g Takshashila

Takshashila became a famous centre of learning at least several centuries BC,and continued to attract students and scholars from around the world untilthe destruction of the city in the 5th century.

At its height, it has been suggested that Takshashila exerted a sort of "intellectualsuzerainty" over other centres of learning in India and its primary focus was notwith elementary, but higher education.

Nalanda

TM

3

"India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskritthe mother of Europe's languages: she was the motherof our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of muchof our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, ofthe ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, throughthe village community, of self-government anddemocracy."

Will DurantAmerican Historian

Sanskrit is an ancient and classical language of India in which ever first book ofthe world Rigveda was compiled. The Vedas are dated by different scholars from6500 B.C. to 1500 B.C. Sanskrit language must have evolved to its expressivecapability prior to that.

It is presumed that the language used in Vedas was prevalent in the form ofdifferent dialects. It was to some extent different from the present Sanskrit.Sanskrit is said to belong to Indo – Aryan or Indo Germanic family of languageswhich includes Greek, Latin and other alike languages.

William Jones, who was already familiar with Greek and Latin, when came incontact with Sanskrit, remarked that Sanskrit is more perfect than Greek,more copious than Latin and more refined than either. He said – “Sanskrit is awonderful language”. It is noteworthy that though ancient and classical, Sanskrit isstill used as medium of expression by scholars throughout India and somewherein other parts of the world e.g. America, and Germany.

“If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully

developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the

greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India."

Max Mueller

Sanskrit

Rich

ness

of l

angu

age

TM

4

Med

ical

Sci

ence

& H

ealth

care

The SushrutSamhita ("Sushruta's collection") is anancient Sanskrit text on medicine, considered to be oneof the earliest major works related to the detailed studyof medicine and surgery.

Written by Sushruta, it is commonly dated to the periodof the 6th century BC. it is one of the foundational textsof Ayurveda (Indian traditional medicine), alongside theCharaka Samhita, Bhela Samhita, and the medicalportions of the Bower Manuscript.

2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgerieslike cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and even plasticsurgeries and brain surgeries. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India.Over 125 surgical tools were used.

Yoga is a physical, mental, andspiritual practice or disciplinewhich originated in India. Theorigins of Yoga dates back to pre-Vedic Indian traditions, but mostlikely developed around the sixthand fifth centuries BC.

Ayurvedic medicine is a system of medicine withhistorical roots in the Indian subcontinent. Somescholars assert that some of the concepts of Ayurvedahave been discovered since the times of Indus ValleyCivilization and earlier. Aryuveda contributessignificantly to the health status of many communities,and is increasingly used within certain communitiesin developed countries.

TM

5

Life

styl

e

When many cultures of the world were only forest dwellers over 5000 years ago,Indians established Harappan Culture in the Sindhu Valley.

Cotton cultivation

Cotton was developedby the occupants of theIndus Valley Civilizationby the fifth thousandyears BC - fourththousand years BC.

ButtonsOrnamental buttons,produced using seashell,were utilized as a part ofthe Indus Valley Civilizationfor fancy purposes by2000 BC. A few buttonswere cut into geometricshapes and had openingspierced into them so theycould be attached togarments by utilizing athread.

Indigo dye: Indigo, a bluepigment and a dye, was usedin India, which was also theearliest major center for itsproduction and processing.Indigo, used as a dye, madeits way to the Greeks and theRomans via various traderoutes, and was valued as aluxury product.

Indigo DyeIndigo, a blue pigmentand a dye, was used inIndia, which was also theearliest major center forits production andprocessing. Indigo, usedas a dye, made its way tothe Greeks and theRomans via various traderoutes, and was valuedas a luxury product.

Cashmere WoolThe fiber is also known as ‘pashm’ or ‘pashmina’ for itsuse in the handmade shawls of Kashmir, India. Thewoolen shawls made from wool in Kashmir region ofIndia find written mention between the 3rd century BCand the 11th century AD.

However, the founder of the cashmere wool industryis traditionally held to be the 15th-century ruler ofKashmir, Zayn-ul-Abidin, who employed weavers fromCentral Asia.

Jute cultivation

Jute has been cultivated inIndia since ancient times.The region of Bengal wasthe major center for Jutecultivation.

TM

6

Life

styl

e MuslinThe Europeans first found the fabric in Mosul,in what is now Iraq, but the fabric actuallyoriginated from Dhaka in what is nowBangladesh.

In the 9th century, an Arab merchant namedSulaiman makes note of the material's origin inBengal.

Use of SpicesThe magic of Indian spices in not only madeancient India one of the richest countriesof South Asia, but also helped India todevelop trade relations with ancientRomans and Arabs who travelled all theway to buy the spices of India. Even inmedieval times, Indian spices attractedEuropean traders to Indian shores.

ShampooThe word shampoo in English isderived from Hindustani champoand dates to 1762.The shampooitself originated in the easternregions of the Mughal Empire thatruled medieval India, where it wasintroduced as a head massage,usually consisting of alkali, naturaloils and fragrances.

Carbon pigment

In India, the carbon blackfrom which India ink wasproduced was obtained byburning bones, tar, pitch,and other substances.

Ink itself has been used in India since at leastthe 4th century BC. Masi, an early ink in Indiawas an admixture of several chemicalcomponents.

Prefabricated homeand movable structure

The first prefabricated homes andmovable structures were used in16th-century Mughal India by Akbar.

Ruler

Even before 1500 BC rulers prepared from ivory were being used by thepeople of by the Indus Valley Civilization.

TM

7

Spor

ts &

Gam

esTM

Kabaddi

The game of kabaddi originated in India during ancient times.Most experts agreethat the game existed in some form or the other in India during the periodbetween 1500 and 400 BC.

Chaturanga

The forerunner of chess began in Indiaamid the Gupta Dynasty. The precursor ofchess originated in India during the Guptadynasty (c. 280-550 AD).

Both the Persians and Arabs attribute theorigins of the game of Chess to the Indians.

The words for "chess" in Old Persian andArabic are chatrang and shatranjrespectively — terms derived fromchaturanga in Sanskrit.

Ludo

Pachisi originated in India by the 6th century.The earliest evidence of this game in India isthe depiction of boards on the caves of Ajanta.

A variant of this game, called Luodo, made itsway to England during the British Raj.

8

Scie

nce

& T

echn

olog

yTM

Prafulla Chandra Roy

Prafulla Chandra Roy synthesized NH4NO2 in its pure form, andbecame the first scientist to have done so.

He also discovered compound mercurous nitrite. The discoverycontributed as a base for significant future research in the field ofChemistry.

Astronomy

In India the first reference of astronomy are to be found in Rig Veda which is datedaround 2000 B.C.A Kerala astronomer, Parameswara, in the 15th century methodically recorded eclipsesand planet locations for 55 years. The details of his observations are in his workSiddhantadipika.

AshtekarVariablesNamed after Abhay Ashtekar whoinvented themare the key buildingblock of loopquantum gravity.

Bhabha ScatteringElectron-positron scattering namedafter Indian nuclear physicist Homi J.Bhabha was later named Bhabhascattering, in honor of his contributionsin the field.

Bose–Einstein statistics,BosonSatyendranath Bose isremembered for his contributionin the world of Physics in the formof Bose–Einstein statistics,condensate and Boson.

Chandrasekhar limitand ChandrasekharnumberDiscovered by and namedafter SubrahmanyanChandrasekhar, whoreceived the Nobel Prize inPhysics in 1983 for his workon stellar structure andstellar evolution.

Wireless radio

In 1895, Jagadish Chandra Bosemade a public demonstration, inpresence of the Lt. Governor ofBengal, of wireless radio.Hisdiscovery was mostly ignored, andthe credit went to GuglielmoM a r c o n i , w h o m a d e ademonstration in 1897.

However, scientists around theworld now acknowledge him as thetrue pioneer.

9

Scie

nce

& T

echn

olog

yTM

Raman effect

Change in the wavelength oflight that occurs when a lightbeam is deflected by molecules.The phenomenon is namedafter SirChandrasekharaVenkataRaman, who discovered it in1928.

Saha EquationThe Saha equation,derived by the Bengaliscientist Meghnad Saha(6 October 1893 – 16February 1956) in 1920,conceptualizesionizations in context ofstellar atmospheres.

MahalanobisdistanceIntroduced in 1936 bythe Indian (Bengali)statistician PrasantaChandra Mahalanobis(29 June 1893 – June 28,1972), this distancemeasure, based uponthe correlation betweenvariables, is used toidentify and analyzediffering pattern withrespect to one base.

USB Device, AGPAjay Bhatt co-inventedUSB Device and alsodeveloped AGP Port,PCI Express and PPMAwhich are so importantin modern computers.

HotmailSabeer Bhatia who co-founded Hotmail, the firstweb based emailing servicein the world can be creditedfor revolutionizing howmodern communication isdone by email.

Pentium ProcessorIn recent times, India has gained world -wide recognition for hercontribution in the field of Information Technology. Vinod Dham is knownas Father of Pentium for his role in the development of highly successfulPentium processors from Intel.

Fiber OpticsLast but not the least, the manwho bent light, Dr NarinderSingh Kapany is honoured byFortune magazine as one of theseven unsung heroes for his rolein the invention of fiber optics.

10

TM

Complimentary: Not for Sale

Conceived & Produced by:Pratik Tarafdar, INDIA EDUCATESwww.indiaeducates.com

Complilation & Design by:Ad Rem Communicationswww.adremcomms.in

Not to be distributed or replicated without prior writtenpermission from Sutras Advisory Services

"Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have

been made in Europe were in fact made in India centuries ago."

Grant Duff

British Historian

"If there is one place on the face of this Earth where all the dreams of

living men have found a home from the very earliest days when Man

began the dream of existence, it is India."

Romain Rolland

French Philosopher