Geeta-Kavita Collection of Hindi poems & articles
Talk 2: Intellectual and scientific achievements in Ancient India
The second talk in the series starts with a brief discussion on the history of India and its rulers. Al Biruni came to India about 1000 years ago and wrote a great deal about the Indian society and its characters. A unique feature of the Indian society was how the wisdom and knowledge was preserved by the society through oral tradition, before the writing evolved. This oral tradition and its remarkable features have been developed. Scientific techniques like carbon dating has been explained and an assessment of the antiquity of Ramayana and Mahabharata through internal references to astronomical events with in the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics have been discussed. Archeological evidence to help understand the evolution of human society has been presented. Various universities that existed on the Indian subcontinent have been listed and the unique contributions of the Indian scholars to science, technology, medicine, mathematics and astronomy have been discussed. I perspective, it appears that the process of acquiring spiritual wisdom and scientific knowledge on the Indian subcontinent could have started as early as 10,000 years ago and far predates the acquisition of the writing skills that appeared about 2500 to 3000 years ago. Indian oral tradition was able to preserve what all knowledge and wisdom evolved on this land.
