Family and Nation

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya, A P J Abdulkalam
Publisher: Harper Publications India

Page 30

16
THE FAMILY AND THE NATION
India also has a fair share in the development of technologies, particularly the distillation of perfumes, the making of dyes, the extraction of sugar, and the smelting of metals. Glass was manufactured in India from the third century BC.
In the fifth century, Aryabhata gave the theory that Earth was a sphere. Aryabhata's main work, known as the Aryabhattiya, was translated into Latin in the thirteenth century. That's how European mathematicians learned methods of calculating the areas of triangles, volumes of spheres, and square and cube roots. Aryabhata also wrote about eclipses and the Sun being the source of moonlight a millennium before Copernicus and Galileo.
In the sixth century, Varahamihira gave five classical principles (siddhantas) of astronomy-Surya, Romaka, Paulisha, Vasishtha and Paitamaha. These principles laid the foundation of Greek (Alexandrine) astronomy.
Mathematics is the science to which Indians have contributed the most. Decimal system, place notation, numbers 1 through 9, and the ubiquitous 0, are all major Indian contributions to world science. In Brahmagupta's treatise written in the seventh century, we read about positive and negative quantities. The tradition continued till very recently through Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920). Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937), C.V. Raman (18881970), M. Visvesvaraya (1860-1962), Satyendra Nath Bose (1894-1974), and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (19101995).
INDIAN PHILOSOPHERS
The first phase of the journey into the realm of Indian philosophy includes the Vedas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. In the next phase come the Buddhist Pitakas and Jatakas. In the third phase come Jain