The Black Vault

I love this culture. When I started researching ancient civ all those years ago, I merely thought about Egypt and the pyramids. I've since learned how naive I was about the "oldest" cultures on this planet. And they weren't as backwards and uneducated as one might think, either.

Here's a bit of history from just one culture:

India

* India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

* Aryabhatta was the first to explain spherical shape, size ,diameter, rotation and correct speed of Earth in 499 AD.

* The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. Students from all over the World studied more than 60 subjects.

* The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

* Sanskrit is considered the mother of all higher languages. Sanskrit is the most precise, and therefore suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

* Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago.

* Today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in civilization.

* Christopher Columbus was attracted India's wealth and was looking for route to India when he discovered the American continent by mistake.

* The art of Navigation was born in the river Sindh 6000 years ago. The word ‘Navigation’ is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit 'Nou'.

* In Siddhanta Siromani (Bhuvanakosam 6) Bhaskaracharya II described about gravity of earth about 400 years before Sir Isaac Newton. He also had some clear notions on differential calculus, and the Theory of Continued Fraction.

* Theory of Continued Fraction was discovered by Bhaskaracharya II.

* Indians discovered Arithmetic and Geometric progression. Arithmetic progression is explained in Yajurveda.

* Govindaswamin discovered Newton Gauss Interpolation formula about 1800 years before Newton.

* Vateswaracharya discovered Newton Gauss Backward Interpolation formula about 1000 years before Newton.

* Parameswaracharya discovered Lhuiler’s formula about 400 years before Lhuiler.

* Nilakanta discovered Newton’s Infinite Geometric Progression convergent series.

* Positive and Negative numbers and their calculations were explained first by Brahmagupta in his book Brahmasputa Siddhanta.

* Aryabhatta also propounded the Heliocentric theory of gravitation, thus predating Copernicus by almost one thousand years.

* Madhavacharya discovered Taylor series of Sine and Cosine function about 250 years before Taylor.

* Madhavacharya discovered Newton Power series.

* Madhavacharya discovered Gregory Leibnitz series for the Inverse Tangent about 280 years before Gregory.

* Madhavacharya discovered Leibnitz power series for pi about 300 years before Leibnitz.

* Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days

* Infinity was well known for ancient Indians. Bhaskaracharya II in Beejaganitha(stanza-20) has given clear explanation with examples for infinity

The Surya Siddhanta, A textbook on astronomy of ancient India, last compiled in 1000 BC, believed to be handed down from 3000 BC by aid of complex mnemonic recital methods still known today. Showed the Earth's diameter to be 7,840 miles, compared to modern measurements of 7,926.7 miles. Showed the distance between the Earth and the Moon as 253,000 miles, Compared to modern measurements of 252,710 miles.

RigVedas (1.50), a hymn addressed to the Sun, refers quite clearly that the Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. This, in fact, refers to the speed of light.


I forgot about this from the Rig Veda above. They knew about the speed of light and it's verified in this ancient text. It has since been confirmed that that very hymn means exactly that.

When you study India's ancient ancestors' writings about how India knew so much detail on the devastation rocket type weaponry have on land/humans/animals and about flying vehicles and battles, it's no surprise how they came to learn/know things about traveling "beneath the moon and above the clouds" as one ancient Indian verse states.

I wonder where this knowledge of the stars, space flight, speed of light, etc...came from.



http://www.indiastar.com/kak4.htm

The Surya Siddhanta is the oldest surviving astronomical text in the Indian tradition. Some Western scholars date it to perhaps the fifth or sixth centuries A.D., though the next itself claims to represent a tradition much, much older. It explains that the earth is shaped like a ball, and states that at the very opposite side of the planet from India is a great city where the sun is rising at the same time it sets in India. In this city, the Surya Siddhanta claims, lives a race of siddhas, or advanced spiritual adepts. If you trace the globe of the earth around to the exact opposite side of India, you'll find Mexico. Is it possible that the ancient Indians were well aware of the great sages/astronomers of Central America many centuries before Columbus discovered America?

new most of them but some where new concept even for me .... ( am an Indian)

I had a random theory ... I call it theory of Glass.

According me to where there is Glass there is progress. In Ancient India glass was used, even mirror made out of metal etc but by mid 12-13th century slowly glass was limited to only ornamental use and decorative purposes. somewhere even during that time the scientific progress (by science here i am encompassing all science domains like mathematics, astronomy, geography , human study, behavioral study etc) just halted. All the names and discoveries you mentioned were all predating that era. During this time middle east was using glass and there are many discoveries there.

Then we see glass later on being used ( beyond ornamental) in Europe and birth of knowledge n science ushered the Renaissance period.

So its glass whether it was mixing of two liquids, or studying stars or even navigating seas, which made a civilization smarter and more innovative and curious about world.

random thoughts:) do bash up if you dont agree

India is a really fascinating place -my closest friends are Indian.

I've always had a thing for India and Indain culture, too

But I am into Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the like, so of course I am gonna be interested

The Bhagivad Gita is a favorite book on wisdom for me

Bionic

actually stranger would be to say that there is no religion called Hinduism. Post the time India started getting invaded n later colonial rule, the scholars of the Hinduism transformed it to a religion. Because they felt religion has more traction with people.

So before it became religion in truest form, Hinduism is just a way of life. It just states principles on life, how to live it, how to make most of it, what is the purpose, where it starts and where things end, n how there is no end n end itself is another beginning.

hehe .. n about Gita, I cannot agree more that it is a book of Answers for me. It has answers on everything that might concern a person. And beauty is those answers are applicable then and are applicable to even situations at work, family, life in general.

Please I respect all religions so the next statement is out of no disrespect, but many Buddhist, Tao, principles and even many modern "well-being" books like The Secret etc heavily have borrowed from Bhagavad Gita