Even as we launched Mangalayan, the probe on 5 Nov 2013, which began orbiting Mars 24 Sept 2014, as a country we have not slowed down on mythological beliefs overriding scientific theories.
We are happy attributing canonical tags to many unprovable beliefs and are scared to discuss the same. The PM has gone on record eulogising our great plastic surgeons being the first in this world to have successfully transplanted the head of a baby elephant on a decapitated Ganesha. Karna’s birth outside the womb of Kunti referred in Mahabharata is attributed to genetic science!
Recently another classic was Kauravas were test-tube babies! A test book from Gujarat claims ‘Divya-drishti’ the sacred vision of yogis which was a prelude to the televisions! Anashva rath of the Vedic era could travel without horses, and the Yantra Rath was actually the motor car! Vedic age aircraft could not only fly from one place to another but from one planet to another too, says Anand J Bodas in the Science Congress, citing Vaimanika Prakaranam, the texts of which again are alleged to have been stolen by foreign rulers.
A Punjab University Professor goes on to claim that dino-asur was created by Lord Brahma, dino, meaning terrible and asur, a lizard in Sanskrit, the language of the Gods. He did not stop at that and added that aeroplanes invented by Wright Brothers were from the original data of the Pushpaka Vimana.
Claims of leaders like the butteroil consigned in havans generate more oxygen and the agricultural produce such offered in the fire produce hydrogen reveal our lack of understanding of basic sciences.
On the other hand, the contribution of our astronomers, astrologers, mathematicians, surgeons and physicians are phenomenal and unchallengeable. They prove as the foundation for further research and honing of theories already established by our sages and scholars. Sushruta the surgeon of 6th Century BC, in his Sushruta Samhita, had documented more than 1100 diseases and the medicinal plants that could treat the ailments. Astronomical inferences were accurately given as early as 500 B.C. giving precisely the new moon and full moon, the lunar and solar eclipses.
Sutras or word-formulae were used widely in Vedic times to solve arithmetic and algebraic problems, and attempts are now being made to resurrect this science under the rubric of ‘Vedic math’.
In later times Hindu astronomers and mathematicians, of whom the most famous were Aryabhata I (5th century), Brahmagupta (6th century), Mahavira (9th century) and Bhaskara (12th century), made ground-breaking contributions to the development and elaboration of mathematical concepts, unknown to the West until the Renaissance or even later.
2009 Nobel laureate Venkat Ramakrishnan, who was in Kolkata earlier this week, expressed disappointment and concern at the slighting of scientific and urged scientists to boldly rise to offer a strong rebuttal to the unsubstantiated or outlandish claims, expressly made in the science forums,. Such attempts would only destroy the importance of the earlier and worthy contribution of Indian Vedic sciences to the world.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide voix
