SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

In the previous chapter, we mentioned the techniques used by artisans and peasants in ancient India. The advances made in these fields, even if they were greater than similar achievements in the ancient Near East, show that the Hindu civilization, contrary to very popular belief, did not only succeed in the sphere of religious philosophy. She made a great contribution to the development of science. To her we owe the ten-digit numbering system, many important achievements in astronomy, and the beginnings of that mathematical science called algebra. On the other hand, by the end of the period we are considering, the practical knowledge that the Indians possessed in the field of medicine and surgery, apparently, was higher than that of other contemporary civilizations. The Hindus far surpassed the Greeks in the field of precise astronomical observations, as well as in the field of mathematics and logic, thanks to the developments of their own scientists. However, their methods and skills were far from those we use today for scientific research. There was no close cooperation between theory and experience which is characteristic of the so-called experimental sciences. Sometimes even certain practical successes, for example, in the activities of surgeons and doctors, were achieved despite not because of their theoretical knowledge. Conversely, some theories emerged almost without any observation or experimentation. Such are the "predictions" of the atomistic structure of the world, surprising from the point of view of modern science, which were exclusively the fruit of logic and intuition. Such is the Jain doctrine of the existence of microscopic forms of life in soil, water and air, which was developed intuitively on the basis of the simplest idea that everything that moves, grows or somehow acts must be alive.

The exception is linguistics, the achievements in which corresponded to the development of significant methodology. Panini's grammar, the most complete that was produced anywhere in the world before the end of the 18th century, and the phonetic system that it uses, testify to the long grammatical tradition that Panini's predecessors and himself created.

Cosmology and geography

The universe of the "Vedas" was very simple: below - the Earth, flat and round, above - the firmament, along which the Sun, Moon and stars move. Between them is the air space ( antariksha), where the birds, clouds and demigods are. This idea of ​​the world became more complicated with the development of religious thought.

The explanations put forward for the origin and evolution of the world had nothing to do with science. But all the religions of India have adopted some cosmological concepts that are fundamental to the Indian consciousness. They were strikingly different from the Semitic ideas that would influence Western thought for a long time: the world is very old, it is in an endless process of successive cyclical evolutions and declines; there are other worlds besides ours.

The Hindus believed that the world was in the shape of an egg, Brahmanda, or the egg of Brahma, and was divided into twenty-one belts: Earth is the seventh from the top. Above the earth, six heavens rise above each other, corresponding to the increasing degrees of bliss and not connected with the planets, as among the Greeks. Below the earth was patala, or the underworld, which included seven levels. Habitat of the Nagas and others mythical creatures, it was by no means considered an unpleasant place. Below the patala was purgatory - naraka, also divided into seven circles, one worse than the other, since it was a place of punishment for souls. The world was suspended in free space and presumably isolated from other worlds.

The Buddhist and Jain cosmological scheme differed from the one just presented in many ways, but was ultimately based on the same concept. Both of them claimed that the Earth was flat, but at the beginning of our era, astronomers recognized the fallacy of this idea, and although it continued to prevail in religious subjects, enlightened minds knew that the Earth was spherical. Some calculations were made of its size, the most recognized was the point of view of Brahmagupta (7th century AD), according to which the earth's circumference was estimated at 5000 yojanas - one yojana was approximately 7.2 km. This number is not that far from truth, and she is one of the most accurate that were established by astronomers of antiquity.

This small spherical Earth, according to astronomers, did not satisfy theologians, and later religious literature still described our planet as a large flat disk. Mount Meru rose in the center, around which the sun, moon and stars revolved. Meru was surrounded by four continents ( dvipa), separated from the central mountain by oceans and named for those large trees that grew on the coast facing the mountain. In the southern continent where people lived, the typical tree was the jambu, so it was called Jambudvipa. The southern part of this continent, separated from the others by the Himalayas, was "the land of the sons of Bharata" (Bharatavarsha), or India. Bharatavarsha alone was 9,000 yojanas wide, while the entire continent of Jambudvipa was 33,000 or, according to some sources, 100,000 yojanas.

Other elements, no less fantastic, were added to this fabulous geography. Jambudvipa is described in the Puranas as a ring surrounding Mount Meru and separated from the neighboring continent of Plakshadvipa by an ocean of salt! This, in turn, surrounded Jambudvipa, and so on until the last, seventh continent: each of them was round and separated from the other by an ocean of some substance - salt, molasses, wine, ghee, milk, cottage cheese and clean water. This description of the world, which strikes more with the power of imagination than reliability, was tacitly allowed by Indian theologians, but astronomers could not ignore it and adapted it to their model of a spherical Earth, making Measure the axis the globe and dividing its surface into seven continents.

Oceans of oil and seas of molasses hindered the development of true geographical science. The seven continents are absolutely impossible to correlate with real areas of the earth's surface - no matter how hard some modern historians try to identify them with regions of Asia. Only Alexandria, known from the first centuries of our era, and vague indications of the city of Romanus (Constantinople) found in astronomical works are reliable. But we are talking about practical knowledge that did not entail any research on the part of scientists.

Astronomy and calendar

One of the first sources that have come down to us, giving us information about astronomical knowledge in ancient India, is Jyotisha Vedanga. This work, certainly created around 500 B.C. e., belongs to didactic literature where applied Vedic knowledge is presented. We are talking here about primitive astronomy, the main purpose of which was to establish the dates of regular sacrifices. The celestial map was drawn using the various positions of the moon, nakshatra, literally - "lunar houses", in relation to the fixed stars, well known from the era of the "Rigveda". This position changes according to a cycle that lasts approximately twenty-seven solar days and seven hours and forty-five minutes, and the sky was divided into twenty-seven regions bearing the names of the constellations of the ecliptic - the probable orbit of the Sun, in relation to which the Moon passes each time its cycle. Subsequently, the sidereal month lengthened to eight hours beyond its twenty-seven solar days, and astronomers added a twenty-eighth, intermediate, nakshatra to correct the error.

It is claimed that Indian astronomy was at one time under Mesopotamian influence, but this has not been definitely established. But the influence of Greek and Roman astronomy, on the contrary, has been proven and, apparently, took place in the first centuries of our era.

Many Greek terms from the field of astronomy did indeed make their way into Sanskrit and later Indian languages. Five astronomical systems siddhant, were known in the 6th century. thanks to the astronomer Varahamihira: one was called "Romaka-siddhanta", the other - "Paulisha-siddhanta"; the name of the latter can be interpreted as a distorted name of the classical astronomer Paul of Alexandria.

India borrowed from Western astronomy the signs of the zodiac, the seven-day week, the hour, and many other concepts. She also adopted the use of astronomy for the purpose of divination. In the Gupta era, the old methods of divination were abandoned in favor of astrology. But the development that astronomy then received in India is still more due to the application of the achievements that Indian mathematicians have achieved. Thanks to these achievements, Indian astronomers were able to overtake the Greeks in a short time. In the 7th century the Syrian astronomer Sever Sebokht appreciated Indian astronomy and mathematics, and the Baghdad caliphs hired Indian astronomers. It was through the Arabs that Indian knowledge came to Europe.

The development of astronomy in India, as in other civilizations of antiquity, was limited by the lack of telescopes, but the methods of observation made it possible to make very accurate measurements, and the use of the decimal number system facilitated calculations. We do not know anything about the observatories of the Hindu period, but it is very possible that those that existed in the XVII-XVIII centuries. in Japur, Delhi and other places, equipped with extremely precise measuring instruments and erected on a giant staircase in order to reduce errors to a minimum, there were predecessors.

Only seven planets grah, could be observed with the naked eye. These are Sun (Surya, Ravi), Moon (Chandra, Soma), Mercury (Budha), Venus (Shukra), Mars (Mangala), Jupiter (Brhaspati), Saturn (Shani). At the beginning of each great universal cycle, all the planets began their circulation, lining up in a row, and returned to the same position at the end of the cycle. The obvious unevenness of the motion of the planets was explained by the theory of epicycles, as in ancient and medieval astronomy. Unlike the Greeks, the Indians believed that the planets actually move in the same way, and the apparent difference in their angular movement is created by unequal distance from the Earth.

To be able to make calculations, astronomers adopted the geocentric planetary model, although at the end of the 5th century. Aryabhata expressed the idea that the Earth turns around its own axis and around the Sun. His successors knew this theory, but it never had practical application. In the Middle Ages, the precession of the equinoxes, as well as the length of the year, the lunar month and other astronomical constants, were calculated with a certain degree of accuracy. These calculations were of great practical use and were often more accurate than those of Greco-Roman astronomers. Eclipses were calculated with great precision and their real cause was known.

The basic unit of the calendar was not a solar day, but a lunar day ( tithi), thirty such days formed a lunar month (that is, the four phases of the moon) - approximately twenty-nine and a half solar days. The month was divided into two halves - pakshi, beginning with the full moon and new moon, respectively. The fifteen days beginning with the new moon are called the "brilliant half" ( shuklapaksha), the other fifteen are the "dark half" ( krishnapaksha). According to the system in force in northern India and most of the Deccan, the month began and ended, as a rule, on the new moon. This Hindu calendar is still used for religious purposes throughout India.

The year consisted, as a rule, of twelve lunar months: chaitra(March, April), vaishyusa(April May), jyaistha(May June), Ashadha(June July), shravana(July August), bhadrapada, or praushthapada(Aug. Sept), ashvina, or ashwayuja(September October), karttika(October November), margashirsha, or agrahayana(November December), paush, or taisha(December - January), magha(January February), phalguna(February March). In pairs, months formed seasons ( ritu). The six seasons of the Indian year were: vasanta(spring: March - May), grishma(summer: May - July), varsha(rains: July - September), charade(autumn: September - November), hemanta(winter: November - January), shiishra(fresh season: January - March).

But twelve lunar months equaled only three hundred and fifty-four days. This problem is the difference between lunar year and solar was decided very early: sixty-two lunar months correspond to approximately sixty solar months, every thirty months one additional month was added to the year - as was done in Babylon. Every second or third year thus consisted of thirteen months, that is, it was twenty-nine days longer than the others.

The Hindu calendar, despite its accuracy, was difficult to use, and it was so different from the solar calendar that it was impossible to correlate dates without complex calculations and correspondence tables. It is impossible even to immediately determine with complete certainty which month the date of the Hindu calendar falls on.

Dates are usually given in the following order: month, paksha, tithi and half of the month, abbreviated shudi("brilliant") or badi("dark"). For example, "chaitra shudi 7" means the seventh day of the new moon of the month of chaitra.

The solar calendar, introduced at that time by Western astronomy, has been known since the Gupta period, but it has supplanted the lunisolar only relatively recently. Obviously, BC did not exist unified system dating. We know that in Rome the reckoning was conducted from the founding of the city - ab urbe condita. The most ancient documents of India, mentioning any date, indicate it in this form: such and such a year of the reign of such and such a sovereign. The idea of ​​tying a date to a relatively long period of time was probably introduced in India by invaders who came from the northwest, from the region where the most ancient records compiled in this way come from. Unfortunately, the Hindus did not adopt a unified system of reckoning, so that the chronology of some eras is sometimes difficult to reconstruct. So, scientists have been arguing for more than a hundred years about what date to take for the first year of the Kanishka era.

Logic and epistemology

India has created a system of logic, the fundamental basis of which is Gautama's Nyaya Sutra. This text, composed of short aphorisms and probably written in the first centuries of our era, was often commented on by subsequent authors. Nyaya was one of the six schools darshan, orthodox philosophy. However, logic was not the exclusive privilege of this school. Buddhism and Jainism, as well as Hinduism, have studied and used it. Disputes contributed to its development, especially those that pitted theologians and logicians of the three faiths. Logic, dependent on religious doctrines, as well as epistemology, had to gradually free itself in order to become in the 13th century. the last teachers of nyaya - the theoreticians of navya-nyaya - the science of pure reason. Interest in objective reality was also determined by another practice - medicine, to which we will return later, and the oldest treatise of which, Ayurveda, already contained logical judgments and evidence.

To a greater extent, Indian thought in this area was concerned with the question of pramanah- a concept that can be translated as "sources of knowledge." According to the medieval Nyaya doctrine, there are four pramanas: perception ( pratyaksha); conclusion ( anumana); conclusion by analogy, or comparison ( upamana), and "word" (shabda), that is, an authoritative statement that is trustworthy - for example, the Vedas.

The Vedanta school added to them intuition or presumption ( arthapatti), and non-perception ( anupalabadhi), which was an excess fabrication of the school. These six modes of knowledge overlapped, and for Buddhists, all forms of knowledge fit into the first two. Jains generally recognized three: perception, inference and evidence. The materialists reduced everything to mere perception.

The study and endless criticism of the process of inference, on which the victory of dialectics in disputes depended, made it possible to discover incorrect reasoning and gradually get rid of them. The main sophisms were exposed: bringing to the point of absurdity (arthaprasanga), roundabout proof (chakra), dilemma (anyonyashraya) etc.

As a correct proof, a conclusion was accepted, the five-term form of which ( panchavayava), however, was a little more complicated than that of the proof in Aristotelian logic. It included five premises: the thesis ( pratijna), argument (hetu) example ( udaharana), application ( upanaya), conclusion ( nigaman).

A classic example of an Indian syllogism:

1) a fire burns on the mountain,

2) because there is smoke above,

3) and where there is smoke, there is fire, as, for example, in the hearth;

4) the same thing happens on the mountain,

5) therefore, there is fire on the mountain.

The third premise of the Indian syllogism corresponds to the main conclusion of Aristotle, the second to the secondary, and the first to the conclusion. The Indian syllogism thus breaks the inference order of classical Western logic: the argument is formulated in the first two premises, justified by a general rule and example in the third premise, and finally confirmed by the repetition of the first two. The example (in the above inference, the hearth) was generally considered to be an essential part of the argument, which strengthened the persuasiveness of the rhetoric. This established system of reasoning is, of course, the result of long practical experience. The Buddhists accepted the three-term syllogism, rejecting the fourth and fifth premises of orthodox reasoning as tautological.

It was believed that the basis for generalization (“where there is smoke, there is fire”), on which any proof is built, had the character of universal interconnectedness - vyapti, in other words, the constant interconnectedness of the sign (smoke) and a number of facts in which it enters (expansion of the concept). There have been many disputes about the nature and origin of this interconnectedness, the consideration of which gave rise to the theory of universals and the theory of particulars, which cannot be presented here due to their complexity.

An analysis of the Indian way of thinking would not be complete without a brief mention of the special epistemological relativism of Jainism. Jain thinkers, as well as some other dissenters, strongly rejected what in classical logic is called the principle of the excluded middle. The Jains, instead of two single possibilities: existence or non-existence, recognized seven modalities of being. Thus, we can say that an object, such as a knife, exists as such. In addition, we can say that it is not something else, such as a fork. It means that it exists as a knife and it does not exist as a fork, and we can say that, on the one hand, it is, and on the other hand, it is not. From another point of view, he is indescribable; its ultimate essence is unknown to us, and we cannot say anything definite about it: it is beyond the bounds of language. Combining this fourth possibility with the previous three, we get three new possibilities of assertion: he is, but his nature resists any description, he is, but his nature cannot be described, and at the same time he is and he is not, but his nature is indescribable. This system, based on the sevenfold affirmation, has been called syadvada(the "maybe" doctrine) or saptabhangi("seven-part division").

The Jains had another theory - the theory of "points of view", or the relativity of aspects of perception, according to which things are defined through something known and, therefore, exist only in that aspect in which they can be felt or comprehended. The mango tree can be seen as an individual creature with its own height and shape, or as a representative of the "universal" mango tree, conveying general concept mango tree without taking into account its individual characteristics. Or, finally, one can consider it as it is at the moment, and note, for example, that it has ripe fruits, without thinking about either its past when it was a young tree, or about its future when it becomes firewood. You can even consider it from the point of view of the name - "mango tree" - and analyze all its synonyms and their relationships. There may be minute differences between these synonyms, which makes it possible to consider their shades and exact meanings.

Without a doubt, it is extremely difficult for modern logicians to understand this pedantic system, where epistemology, as we have seen, is mixed with semantics. However, it testifies to high level theorizing and proves that Indian philosophers were fully aware that the world is more complex and subtle than we think, and that a thing in one of its aspects can be true and at the same time false in another.

Mathematics

Mankind owes almost everything to ancient India that concerns mathematics, the level of development of which in the time of the Guptas was much higher than that of other peoples of antiquity. The achievements of Indian mathematics are mainly due to the fact that the Indians had a clear concept of abstract number, which they distinguished from the numerical quantity or spatial extension of objects. Whereas the Greeks mathematical science largely based on measurements and geometry, India went beyond these concepts early and, thanks to the simplicity of numerical notation, invented elementary algebra, which allowed calculations to be made more complex than those that the Greeks could do, and led to the study of number itself.

In the most ancient documents, dates and other numbers are written according to a system similar to that adopted by the Romans, Greeks and Jews - in which different symbols were used to indicate tens and hundreds. But in the Gujarati record of 595 CE e. the date is indicated using a system that consists of nine digits and a zero, in which the position of the digit matters. Very soon, the new system is fixed in Syria and is used everywhere up to Vietnam itself. Thus, it is obvious that it was known to mathematicians several centuries before it appeared in the records. The editors of the records were more conservative in their ways of dating, and we see that in modern Europe the Roman system, though impractical, is still often used for the same purpose. We do not know the name of the mathematician who invented the simplified numbering system, but the most ancient mathematical texts that have come down to us are the anonymous Bakshali Manuscript, a copy from the original of the 4th century BC. n. e., and "Aryabhatya" Aryabhata, which dates from 499 AD. e., - suggest that such a existed.

Only at the end of the XVIII century. the science of ancient India became known to the Western world. From that time began a kind of conspiracy of silence, which continues to this day and prevents India from being credited with the invention of the decimal system. For a long time it was unreasonably considered an Arab achievement. The question arises: was there a zero in the first examples of the use of the new system? Indeed, they did not have a zero sign, but the positions of the numbers, of course, mattered. The oldest record containing zero, depicted as a closed circle, dates from the second half of the 9th century, while in the Cambodian record of the end of the 7th century. it is represented as a dot, probably the same way it was originally written in India, since in the Arabic system zero is also represented by a dot.

The conquest of Sindh by the Arabs in 712 contributed to the spread of Indian mathematics in the then expanding Arab world. About a century later, the great mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi appeared in Baghdad, who used his knowledge of the Indian decimal system in his famous treatise. Perhaps here we can talk about the influence that this outstanding mathematical work had on the further development of the science of numbers: three centuries after its creation it was translated into Latin and spread throughout Western Europe. Adelard de Bath, English scientist XII in., translated another work of Khorezmi called "The Book of Algorithms of Indian Numbers". The name of the Arabic author remained in the word "algorithm", and the title of his main work "Hisab al-Jabr" gave rise to the word "algebra". Although Adelard was fully aware that Khorezmi owed much to Indian science, the algorithmic system was attributed to the Arabs, as was the decimal system of numbers. Meanwhile, Muslims remember its origin and usually also call the algorithm the word "Hindizat" - "Indian art". In addition, if the Arabic alphabetic text is read from right to left, then the numbers are always written from left to right - as in Indian records. And although the Babylonians and Chinese had attempts to create a numbering system in which the value of a number depended on the place it occupied in the number, it was in India in the first centuries of our era that the simple and effective system currently used throughout the world arose. The Maya used zero in their system, also giving importance to the position of the digit. But although the Maya system was most likely older, it, unlike the Indian, did not receive any distribution in the rest of the world.

Thus, the importance of Indian science for the West cannot be overestimated. Most of the great discoveries and inventions that Europe is proud of would not have been possible without the mathematical system created in India. In terms of the influence that the unknown mathematician, who invented the new system, had on world history, and his analytical gift, he can be considered the most significant person, after the Buddha, that India has ever known. Medieval Indian mathematicians such as Brahmagupta (7th century), Mahavira (9th century), Bhaskara (12th century), in turn, made discoveries that became known in Europe only in the Renaissance and later. They operated with positive and negative values, invented elegant ways to extract square and cube roots, they knew how to solve quadratic equations and some types of indefinite equations. Aryabhata calculated the approximate value of the number l, which is still used today and which is the expression of the fraction 62832/20000, i.e. 3.1416. This value, much more accurate than that calculated by the Greeks, was brought by Indian mathematicians to the ninth decimal place. They made a number of discoveries in trigonometry, spherical geometry and infinitesimal calculus, mostly related to astronomy. Brahmagupta went further in the study of indefinite equations than what Europe learned by the 18th century. In medieval India, the mathematical interconnection of zero (shunya) and infinity was well understood. Bhaskara, refuting his predecessors who claimed that x: 0 = x, proved that the result is infinity. He also proved mathematically what Indian theology has known for at least a millennium: that infinity, even divided, remains infinity, which can be expressed by the equation: x = ?.

Physics and chemistry

Physics remained very dependent on religion, changing its theories slightly from sect to sect. The classification of the world according to elements arose in the era of the Buddha, or perhaps earlier. All schools recognized at least four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Hindu orthodox schools and Jainism added a fifth, akasha (ether). It was recognized that air does not expand indefinitely, and it was very difficult for the Indian mind, with its fear of emptiness, to comprehend empty space. Five elements were considered to be the conductive medium of sensory perception: earth - smell, air - touch, fire - vision, water - taste and ether - hearing. The Buddhists and Ajiviks rejected ether, but the Ajiviks added life, joy and suffering, which, according to their teaching, were in a certain sense material, - thereby bringing the number of elements to seven.

Most schools believed that the elements were formed by atoms, with the exception of the ether. Indian atomism, of course, has nothing to do with Greece and Democritus, since it was already formulated by the unorthodox Kakuda Katyayana, an older contemporary of the Buddha. The Jains believed that all atoms ( anu) are identical and that the difference in the properties of the elements depends on how the atoms are connected to each other. But most schools held that there were as many types of atoms as there were elements.

As a rule, it was believed that the atom is eternal, but some Buddhists saw it as the smallest object capable of occupying space and having a minimum lifespan, and after disappearing immediately replaced by another. The Buddhist concept of the atom thus resembled Planck's quantum to some extent. It is not visible to the naked eye, and for the Vaisheshika school it is just a point in space, devoid of any volume.

An atom has no properties, but only potentiality, which manifests itself when it is combined with other atoms. The Vaisheshika school, which developed this part of its doctrine best of all and was predominantly the school of atomism, believed that atoms, before combining to form material objects, are combined into dyads and triads. This "molecular" theory was developed differently by the Buddhists and Ajivikas, according to which, under normal conditions, there are no isolated atoms, but only compounds of atoms in various proportions within molecules. Each molecule contains at least one atom of each of the four elements, and the predominance of one or another element determines its specificity ( vaishesa). This hypothesis took into account the fact that matter can exhibit the properties of many elements: for example, wax can burn and melt because its molecules contain a certain proportion of water and fire. According to Buddhists, compounds of molecules are formed due to the presence of water atoms in each of them, which play a binding role.

These theories were not always shared, and the great Shaivite theologian Shankara, who lived in the ninth century, strongly opposed atomistic ideas. These theories, based entirely on imagination, were wonderful exercises for explaining the physical structure of the world. Thus, they must be regarded as the achievement of ancient India, even if one can, with almost no doubt, consider their similarity with the theory that arose as a result of the discoveries of modern physics to be pure coincidence.

In all other respects, Indian physics remains at a relatively primitive level. Like all ancient physics, it did not know the principle gravity, which is the basis of any explanation of the world. Elements such as earth and water were thought to tend to fall and fire to rise, and it was noted that solids and liquids expand when exposed to heat. But these phenomena have not been studied experimentally. However, in the field of acoustics, the Indians made important discoveries thanks to the phonetic exercises necessary for the correct recitation of the Vedas. They were able to distinguish musical tones separated by a smaller interval than in other musical systems of antiquity, and they noticed that differences in timbre are caused by an overtone ( anuranana), changing depending on the instrument.

Indian metallurgists were masters in ore mining and metal smelting. But for the most part, their pragmatic knowledge was not based on the developed metallurgical science. As for chemistry, it was put at the service of medicine, not technology. It was used to obtain medicines, longevity elixirs, stimulants, poisons and antidotes. Chemists were able to isolate various alkalis, acids and salts by simple calcination and distillation, and there is even an unproven point of view that they discovered the formula for gunpowder.

In the Middle Ages, Indian chemists, as well as their Chinese, Muslim and European counterparts, began to study mercury, possibly under the influence of the Arabs. A school of alchemists appeared, which conducted numerous experiments with this unusual liquid metal and considered it a cure for all diseases, a source of eternal youth, and even a perfect means of salvation. Having embarked on this path, Indian chemistry fell into decline, but before disappearing, it bequeathed to the Arabs much of the knowledge that they passed on to medieval Europe.

Physiology and medicine

The Vedas testify to a very primitive level of knowledge in these areas, but later there was a significant development of these two sciences. The main works on medicine were the manuals of Charaka (I-II centuries AD) and Sushruta (about the 4th century AD). They were the result of a fully developed system, comparable in certain respects to the systems of Hippocrates and Galen, but going further in some respects. There can hardly be any doubt that the development of medicine was favored by two factors: Buddhism and an interest in physiology associated with the phenomena of yoga and mystical experiences. A Buddhist monk, like later a Christian missionary, often performed the function of a doctor among the population from whom he begged. In addition, while concerned about his own health and the health of his fellows, he had some distrust of the magical medicine of heroic times and leaned towards rationalism. Probably, contacts with doctors of the Hellenistic world contributed to the development of medical art. The similarities between both types of medicine suggest a mutual influence. After Sushruta, almost nothing new appeared in Indian medicine, except for the wider use of medicines based on mercury, as well as opium and sarsaparilla, both introduced by the Arabs. Methods used by an "Ayurvedic" doctor (one who knows ayurveda, science of long life), have remained largely the same in modern India.

Indian medicine, like the medicine of antiquity and the Middle Ages, was based on the theory of fluids ( dosha). Health, according to most authors, depended on the balance between the three vital fluids of the body: wind, bile and mucus, to which blood was sometimes added. In the theory of the three saps one finds those three gunas or universal qualities which we have spoken of in connection with the Sankhya school.

The vital functions supported the five "winds" or vayu: udana, extending from the throat and allowing one to speak; prana, whose receptacle is the heart and which is responsible for breathing and absorbing food; adobe, which increases the fire in the stomach, which "cooks" or digests foods and separates them into digestible and indigestible parts; apana V abdominal cavity responsible for excretion and conception; vyana present throughout the body, carries out blood circulation and makes the whole body move.

Food digested by samana becomes chyle, which enters the heart, and from there to the liver, where it turns into blood. Blood, in turn, turns into flesh, and further - into fat, bones, bone marrow and sperm. This latter, without being erupted, produces energy ( ojas), which returns to the heart, from where it spreads to all organs. It was believed that this metabolic process takes place in thirty days.

The Indians did not have a clear understanding of the functions of the brain and lungs and believed, like most peoples of antiquity, that the mind is concentrated in the heart. But they knew the meaning of the spinal cord and they knew about the existence of the nervous system, but represented it very vaguely. The taboo on any contact with corpses did not allow dissecting and studying anatomy, although it cannot be said that such a practice did not exist at all. But the development of physiology and biology was indeed held back.

Despite these insufficient, somewhat lower knowledge compared to other peoples, there were many experienced surgeons in India who acquired their knowledge experimentally. They did C-section, very skillfully treated fractures and achieved such perfection in the field of plastic surgery, which was not achieved by any modern civilization. Practitioners were specialists in repairing noses, ears, and lips lost or damaged in war or as punishment. In this respect, Indian surgery continued to be far ahead of European surgery until the 18th century, when the surgeons of the East India Company began to learn from their Indian counterparts the art of rhinoplasty.

Indians, who have long believed in the existence of microscopic life forms, never guessed that they could provoke diseases. But, even though they had no idea about antiseptics and asepsis, they nevertheless recommended careful cleanliness, at least as far as they imagined it, and understood the therapeutic value of clean air and light.

The pharmacopoeia was very rich and used mineral, animal and vegetable substances. Many medicines were known and used in Asia long before their introduction in Europe, such as the oil of the chaulmugra tree, which was traditionally prescribed as a cure for leprosy and is still the main remedy for this disease. These factors, more than theoretical knowledge, contributed to the success of ancient Indian medicine, which is still widely used in the subcontinent, slightly inferior to modern science.

The doctor was a highly respected person, and the vaidya still occupies a high rank in the caste hierarchy today. The professional charter, fixed in medical treatises, resembles the rules of Hippocrates. It still remains valid for all doctors. Here, for example, is the advice given by Charaka: “If you want to succeed in your profession, achieve wealth and fame, and go to heaven after death, you should every day, waking up and going to sleep, pray for the benefit of all sentient beings, especially cows and brahmins, and struggle with all their might to restore health to the sick. You must not lose the trust of your patients, even at the cost of your own life... You should not indulge in drunkenness, or do evil, or have bad acquaintances ... You should be kind in your speeches and serious, striving to increase your knowledge. When you go to a patient, nothing should divert your thoughts, your speech, your mind and your feelings from the patient and from his treatment ... Everything that happens in the patient's house should not be disclosed to the outside, and should not talk about the patient's condition with third parties. persons capable of harming either the patient or third parties with the help of this knowledge.

The most generous rulers and religious institutions provided free medical care the poor. Ashoka was proud of providing medicines to people and animals, and the traveler Fa Xian in the 5th century BC. n. e. testified to the existence of free hospitals, functioning at the expense of donations from devout citizens.

Veterinary medicine was also developed, especially in the courts, where horses and elephants were especially taken care of, and practitioners specializing in this field were in great demand. The doctrine of non-violence encouraged the construction of shelters for abandoned, sick and old animals, and these acts of mercy are still performed in many cities of India to this day.

The Indian Vedas are a collection of the most ancient writings of Hinduism. It is believed that Vedic knowledge is limitless and thanks to it a person receives information on how to achieve in life and reach a new level. The Vedas of India allow you to gain many benefits and avoid troubles. In the ancient scriptures, questions are considered, both from the material and from the spiritual sphere.

Vedas - the philosophy of ancient India

The Vedas are written in Sanskrit. It is wrong to consider them a religion. Many call them Light, and people who live in ignorance Darkness. In the hymns and prayers of the Vedas, the theme of who people are on earth is revealed. The Vedas expound the philosophy of India, according to which a person is a spiritual particle located in eternity. The human soul exists forever, and only the body dies. The main mission of Vedic knowledge is to explain to a person what he is. The Vedas state that there are two types of energy in the world: spiritual and material. The first is divided into two parts: border and higher. The human soul, being in the material world, experiences discomfort and suffers, while the spiritual plane is an ideal place for it. Realizing the theory set forth in the Indian Vedas, a person opens the way to.

In general, there are four Vedas:

All ancient Indian Vedas consist of three divisions. The first is called Sahita and contains hymns, prayers and formulas. The second department is the Brahmans and there are statutes for conducting Vedic rites in it. The last part is called the Sutras and contains additional information to the previous section.

Life on the Hindustan Peninsula originated so long ago that it is difficult to choose a starting point, from what time it is necessary to describe the cultural achievements of Ancient India. Five or even six thousand years is a joke, in a short article to give a complete analysis. Therefore, we confine ourselves to brief information.

Culture features

There are a great many peoples, tribes and, accordingly, languages ​​in India. Unlike European culture, they developed completely separately and independently, and what a European person considers basic is not such for a resident of India. We think empirically, but in India we think abstractly. We think in ethical categories, in India - in ritual ones. Ritual is much more important than morality. European thinking is legal (law, human rights), in India it is a myth in which all rights are drowned. We think in collective terms, but in India only personal salvation and rebirth matter. The categories "people", "nation", "tribe", "co-religionists" are not very clear for Indians. But still they were united by religion, in which there is no systematicity. Below we will talk about Hinduism, which is still alive and which was created by Ancient India. The achievements of his spiritual practices are also appreciated by representatives of other civilizations.

The origin of life

The first inhabitants lived in the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley. But little is known about them. It was the black population (Dravids). The light-skinned nomadic tribes of the Aryans who came from Iran, which meant “noble” in the language, drove the natives into the forests and to the very south of the Indian subcontinent.

They brought with them language and religion. Many centuries later, when the Aryans themselves reached the south, they began to coexist peacefully with the dark-skinned Dravidian population, and their religions united, merged and melted down.

caste system

The arias brought it with them. The Indians themselves use the word "varna", and it is translated as "color" to designate their social categories. The lighter and whiter the skin, the higher people stood on the social ladder. There are four varnas. The highest is the Brahmins, who have both power and knowledge. Priests and rulers are born here.

Then follow the kshatriyas, that is, warriors. Then the vaishyas. These are merchants, artisans, peasants. The lowest are sudras (servants and slaves). All estates originated from the mythical man - Purusha. Brahmins came from his head, kshatriyas from his arms and shoulders, vaishyas from his hips and loins, for whom fertility was important, from feet - shudras, which are in the mud. The untouchables were created from the dirt, whose situation is the most terrible. The entire population was illiterate, which has survived to this day. And the kshatriyas and brahmins possessed knowledge. It was the latter that created Ancient India owes its development to them. Achievements in various fields of culture were significant. But it is impossible to climb the social ladder with the existence of castes. A person from birth to death is associated only with the caste in which he was born.

Language and writing

We will not dwell on undeciphered languages, but we will turn to which appeared almost five and a half thousand years ago and which became the language of scientists, priests and philosophers. It has an extensive literature. Initially, these were obscure religious hymns, chants, spells (Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda), and later works of art(Ramayana and Mahabharata).

For the Brahmins, Sanskrit was the same language as Latin is for us. It is the language of learning. For us, it is of interest because all the languages ​​spoken in Europe supposedly grew out of it. Its roots can be traced in Greek, and in Latin, and in Slavic languages. The very word "Veda" is translated as knowledge. Compare with the root of the Russian verb "to know", that is, to know. So included in modern world Ancient India. Achievements in the development of the language belong to the Brahmins, and the methods of its dissemination have not been studied enough.

Architecture, sculpture and painting

The Brahmins who originated from the eyes of the mythical Purusha practiced the visual arts.

They designed temples, created picturesque and sculptural images of the gods. This attracts the attention of not only pious Indians, but also all those who come to India and get acquainted with the incomparable beauty of palaces and temples.

Science

• Mathematics.

To engage in grandiose construction, precise knowledge is needed. whose achievements in this area are very great, she developed a decimal account, the numbers that, by misunderstanding, are called Arabic and which we use, were invented in India. It also developed the concept of zero. Scientists from India have proved that if any number is divided by zero, then the result will be infinity. For six centuries BC, they knew the number pi. Indian scientists were engaged in the development of algebra, they were able to solve square and cube roots from numbers, calculate the sine of an angle. In this area, ancient India has gone far ahead of all. Achievements and inventions in the field of mathematics are the pride of this civilization.

• Astronomy.

Despite the fact that they did not have telescopes, astronomy occupied an honorable place in ancient India.

By observing the moon, astronomers were able to determine its phases. Earlier than the Greeks, Indian scientists came to the conclusion that the Earth rotates around its axis. Indian astronomers divided the day into hours.

• Medicine.

Ayurveda, which contains the basic medical postulates, was originally used for the ritual purification of priests who dealt with the untouchables. All sorts of cleansing of the body came from there, which are widely used in our time, since the environment is very polluted.

Hinduism

This religion has, scary to say, almost six thousand years, and it is alive and well. It is very closely connected with the caste system, which was mentioned above. None of the theologians gave a definition to Hinduism, since it includes everything that it meets on its way. It contains elements of Islam and Christianity. Heresies, because religion is "omnivorous", there never was, just as there were no religious wars in India. These are the unconditional achievements of Ancient India. The main thing in Hinduism is the ideas of non-violence and asceticism. The gods in India are both humanoid and include animal elements.

The god Hanuman has the body of a monkey, and the god Ganesha has the head of an elephant. The supreme revered deity who created the world, and then broke it into small pieces, like a crystal vessel - Brahma. His study and development of his teachings are engaged in brahmins. Ordinary people are closer to more understandable Shiva - a warrior (he had a third eye, designed to destroy enemies; then a curious transformation took place, and the eye became needed to study the inner world) and the god of fertility, and Vishnu - a dark-skinned protector of the family and a fighter against evil.

Buddhism

This, it must be said right away, is not a religion, since the concept of a deity is absent in it and there is no prayer as a cry for salvation. It's complicated philosophy created a little earlier than Christianity, Prince Gautama.

The main thing a Buddhist wants to achieve is to get out of the wheel of samsara, out of the wheel of rebirth. Only then can one reach nirvana, that which is incomprehensible. And happiness and harmony are false ideas, they simply do not exist. But Buddhism in India did not become widespread, since there is no prophet in his own country, but flourished, having changed, outside this country. Today it is believed that a person may not know anything about the Buddha, but if he lives instinctively correctly and observes all the laws of Buddhism, then he has the opportunity to become enlightened and find the path to nirvana.

Achievements of Ancient India briefly

Mathematics - modern numbers and algebra.

Medicine - cleansing measures, determining the state of a person by pulse, by body temperature. Invented medical instruments - probes, scalpels.

Yoga is a spiritual and physical practice that improves a person.

A cuisine rich in spices, among which curry is worth highlighting. The main component of this seasoning is turmeric root, which improves immunity and prevents Alzheimer's disease.

Chess is a game that trains the mind and develops strategic skills. They synchronize the hemispheres of the brain, contribute to its harmonious development.

All this was given by ancient India. Achievements of culture of ancient times are not outdated until today.

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Science of Ancient India

The early Indian civilization was created by the ancient indigenous population of North India in the 3rd century BC. The centers of ancient India were the cities of Mokenjo-Daro and Harappa. The main achievements of this civilization were the system of water supply and sewerage; original writing - Sanskrit; the presence of numerous religions - Brahminism (Hinduism and Jainism), Buddhism and Islam; development of science.

The science of Ancient India differed from Ancient Greek in the presence of a special type of thinking among scientists based on moral principles and their supernatural abilities, which allowed them to see things in other spaces, explain human diseases, reveal the secrets of the universe and life. Unlike ancient Greek philosophers, knowledge did not require logical evidence, it was enough to see them with supernatural abilities.

Ancient Indian culture and science reached its real flourishing in the era of "Rigvedi" - the period of writing religious texts by the priests of the Aryan tribes. During this period, a caste system (varnas) was formed: brahmins (priests, philosophers, scientists), kshatriyas (warriors, rulers), vaishyas (merchants, farmers and cattle breeders), shudras (workers and servants). However, due to the fact that the achievements of the science of Ancient India were presented in Sanskrit, the main achievements of that science became known to the West only at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.

The culture of the peoples of the Far East and India is very ancient. Agriculture, handicrafts, construction equipment, etc. developed here in ancient times. Writing, literature arose, philosophy and science began to develop. Astronomy has a very ancient origin in China and India. It is known that as a result of systematic astronomical observations, the Chinese astronomer Shi Sheng compiled a star catalog containing up to 800 stars. Astronomical observatories arose quite early in the Far East and India. By the 5th-6th centuries, well-equipped astronomical observatories existed in India, in which measurements of the position and movement of celestial bodies were carried out.

Famous Indian astronomer Aryabhata, as already mentioned, expressed the idea of ​​the rotation of the Earth around its axis. Significant progress in ancient times and in the Middle Ages in India and China was achieved by mathematics. The most important contribution to the development of mathematics was the creation in India in the first centuries of our era of the positional decimal number system. It is also known that there was the concept of a negative number. In the work of the Indian scientist Brahmagupta, the concept of negative numbers is used.

A negative number is treated as a debt, rules for dealing with negative numbers are given. There is also evidence that Indian scientists began to use the methods of differential calculus. Thus, the Soviet Indologist F. I. Shcherbatsky wrote that in India “astronomy was familiar with the principles of differential calculus. This news caused a lot of surprise among modern English astronomers.

time system

Indian thinking has a pronounced cyclical type of relationship to time. Linearity in this series of cycles creates only the effort of the human will, breaking through the cyclicity of samsara to the eternal peace of liberation. The ancient Indian chronological model is somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Chinese: the same huge numbers and the same inclination to "cycle within a cycle." "The unit of measurement of the smallest cycle is the yuga -" century ". The yuga is preceded and followed by the" dawn "and" twilight ", which connect the" centuries "to each other. A complete cycle, or mahayuga, consists of four centuries of unequal duration, and begins with the Thus, the first "age" - kritayuga - lasts 4000 years, plus "dawn" - more than 400 years, and "twilight" the same amount, then come the tretayuga - 3000 years, twoparayuga - 2000 years, and kaliyuga - 1000 years (plus, respectively, "dawns" and "twilight").

Therefore, mahayuga lasts 12,000 years. The successive reduction in the duration of each new yuga corresponds to a reduction in the duration of human life, accompanied by a decline in morals and a weakening of the mind ... The transition from one yuga to another occurs, as we have already seen, in "twilight" which ends with a period of shadows. As we approach the end of the cycle, that is, the fourth and last, south, the "shadows" thicken.

The last yuga - the one in which we now live - is called, by the way, kaliyuga - "the age of darkness." The full cycle ends with "decay" - pralaya, - which is repeated in an even more radical way - mahapralaya ("great decay") - at the end of the thousandth cycle "(Eliade M. "Cosmos and History", M., 1987, p. 108-109 Later, the "twelve thousand years of the Maha Yuga were considered 'divine years', each of which lasted 360 (ordinary) years, which in total gives 4,320,000 years of one cosmic cycle. A thousand such mahayugas constitute one kalpa; fourteen kalpas make up one manvantara. One kalpa is equal to one day of Brahma's life, another kalpa is equal to one night. One hundred of these years of Brahma make up his life, but even such a long life span of Bharma does not exhaust time, since the gods are not eternal, and cosmic creations and destructions continue indefinitely "(Eliade M. "Cosmos and History", M., 1987, p. .109).

Development of sciences

The main achievements of science in ancient India include the following. The ancient Indians knew that the Earth revolves around the Sun and its axis, the existence of the atom and were able to measure it, introduced the number "zero". Most naturally scientific knowledge in ancient India was transmitted in mythological form. An example of this is a list of successive appearances of one of Indian gods Vishnu, which he, according to myth, took to protect the Earth from demons. First it was the fish that saved the first man from the flood, then the turtle to search for the drink of immortality; the boar that raised the Earth from the underworld; a man-lion who crushed another demon; Parasurama - a man of a violent and unbridled disposition; Rama is a noble person; Krishna is a god-man. On this example, one can trace the evolution of chordates in biology, and the last four incarnations - with social evolution.

Indian mathematics, in accordance with the general attitude of ancient Indian culture, arises from the needs of the cult. "The altars were oriented to the cardinal points: their bases were built according to precisely established figures, for example, isosceles trapezoids with given aspect ratios. Two types of ratios were observed between the bases of the altars: either the bases were similar, and the areas were related as the first numbers of the natural series, or the bases of the altars were equal in size by area, by polygons of various shapes. At the same time, there was a need to solve various geometric problems: "constructing a right angle, a square, integer right triangles, obtaining from the latter, doubling, tripling a given square, converting the square of the area (a) to the square of the area (n * a), converting the rectangle to an equal square, and some others. The Pythagorean theorem was also known. "However, the style of thinking of ancient Indian mathematics was not geometric, but rather algebraic. Therefore, unlike Greek, Indian mathematics was calm about irrationality and calculated the root of 2 up to the sixth digit. If modern geometry has its source V Ancient Greece, then arithmetic originates in India. So familiar to us is the decimal positional number system of Indian origin. Indian mathematicians also took the first steps in creating symbolic algebra and also developed some purely algebraic methods for solving problems.

Linguistics occupied a special place in the structure of ancient Indian science. It was connected with deep reverence for oral speech characteristic of ancient Indian culture. As you remember, in the philosophical school of the Mimansics, it was stated that the natural existence of the world is supported by sacrifices, that sacrifice is, as it were, the foundation of the world, the world axis. In the sacrifice, the most important role was assigned to the pronunciation of magical formulas, sacred texts. The role of the text spoken by the voice is clearly visible in teaching, in which memorization was a very essential element. Distrust of the written word is an important characteristic of the ancient Indian mentality. "Writing, which appeared in India around the 1st millennium BC, was used for a long time only for economic and legal purposes. All spiritual culture - religious poetry, philosophy, literature and science - were transmitted orally. Even at a later time, when writing received widespread, mnemonics continued to be the main means of storing information.Reading from a written text, for example, was considered shameful as one of the "six unworthy ways of reading."

medical science

Particularly successful was ancient Indian medicine (Ayurveda), which was founded in the 3rd century BC. Ayurveda is more than medicine, it is the science of life. It contains the foundations of natural science, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. The main difference between Ayurveda and medicine (in the modern sense) is the use of a holistic approach when considering human diseases, so the disease was considered not only as a disease of the physical body, but also the spiritual and mental state of the patient was studied. Man was presented as an integral psychophysical unit of the Cosmos.

Ayurveda can be considered the progenitor of all medical areas; it provided the basis for Chinese, Tibetan, and Arabic medicine. Ayurveda came to Ancient Greece as a holistic system, but the Greeks separated the physical and mental in a person, so now Western medicine has only a physical orientation.

The last yuga - the one in which we now live - is called, by the way, kaliyuga - "the age of darkness." The full cycle ends with "decay" - pralaya - which is repeated in an even more radical way - mahapralaya ("great decay") - at the end of the thousandth cycle "(Eliade M. "Cosmos and History", M., 1987, p. 108-109 Later, the "twelve thousand years of the Maha Yuga were considered 'divine years', each of which lasted 360 (ordinary) years, which in total gives 4,320,000 years of one cosmic cycle. A thousand such mahayugas constitute one kalpa; fourteen kalpas make up one manvantara. One kalpa is equal to one day of Brahma's life, another kalpa is equal to one night. One hundred of these years of Brahma make up his life, but even such a long life span of Bharma does not exhaust time, since the gods are not eternal, and cosmic creations and destructions continue indefinitely "(Eliade M. "Cosmos and History", M., 1987, p. .109).

The concept of time in Buddhism in general terms repeats the common Indian. But here the linear regressive model is superimposed on the cyclical model, which manifests itself, for example, in a consistent reduction in the time of human life. "So at the time of the first Buddha, Vipassya... human life lasted 80,000 years, at the time of the second Buddha, Sikhi,... 70,000 years, and so on. The seventh Buddha, Gautama, appears only when human life has been reduced to hundred years, that is, to the extreme limit. (We will find the same motif in the Iranian and Christian apocalypses)"

If we turn to the ancient Indian calendars, then here we will encounter a rather complex and ambiguous situation. In the Vedic era, India had five calendars: a calendar with a sidereal year of 324 days - 12 months of 27 days each; a calendar with a sidereal year of 351 days - 13 months of 27 days each; standard lunar calendar - 6 months of 30 days and 6 months of 29 days; civil calendar with a year of 360 days - 12 months of 30 days; calendar with a year of 378 days. To bring these calendars into line with reality, inserts of 9, 12, 15, 18 days were periodically made between the years. Most of the calendars served the needs of the cult, the most accurate was the civil calendar with an insertion of 21 days every four years. The average length of a year in this model was 365.25 days. The names of the days of the week in ancient Indian calendars come from the names of the luminaries: "Sunday - aditya-vara (day of the Sun), Monday - sama-vara (day of the moon), Tuesday - mangala-vara (day of Mars), Wednesday - budha-vara (day of Mercury ), Thursday - brhaspati-vara (Jupiter's day), Friday - Shukra-vara (Venus day), Saturday - Shanaishchara-vara (Satutna day) "(G.M. Bongard-Levin" Ancient Indian Civilization ") Now it is appropriate to say a few words about ancient Indian astronomy. First of all, the almost complete absence of astrological works, so characteristic of ancient Chinese culture, is striking. This is due to the general structure of the ancient Indian worldview: a person in ancient India was perceived not as a passive witness to the world drama, trying to guess the next act by indirect signs, but as one of the creators of this drama, actively influencing its course. Hence the need for astrological predictions fell away. Actually, astronomy was formed in India quite late and bore distinct traces of Greek influence.

Indian mathematics, in accordance with the general attitude of ancient Indian culture, arises from the needs of the cult. "The altars were oriented to the cardinal points: their bases were built according to precisely established figures, for example, isosceles trapezoids with given aspect ratios. Two types of ratios were observed between the bases of the altars: either the bases were similar, and the areas were related as the first numbers of the natural series, or the bases of the altars were equal in size by area, by polygons of various shapes. At the same time, there was a need to solve various geometric problems: "constructing a right angle, a square, integer right-angled triangles, obtaining from the latter, doubling, tripling a given square, converting a square of area (a) into a square of area (n * a), converting a rectangle into an equal area square and some others. The Pythagorean theorem was also known. However, the style of thinking of ancient Indian mathematics was not geometric, but rather algebraic. Therefore, unlike Greek mathematics, Indian mathematics was calm about irrationality and calculated the root of 2 up to the sixth digit. If modern geometry has its origin in Ancient Greece, then arithmetic originates in India. So familiar to us is the decimal positional number system of Indian origin. Indian mathematicians also took the first steps in creating symbolic algebra and also developed some purely algebraic methods for solving problems.

An interesting feature of Indian mathematical texts is that many of them were written in verse, just like some natural-philosophical works of other peoples of antiquity. This is due to the fact that the thinking of the peoples of antiquity was characterized by a certain integrity, which is sometimes so lacking in modern culture, which has broken the whole into many fragments and is engaged in scrupulous examination of each of them. For a man of ancient cultures, mathematics and poetry were not separated on different sides of the abyss, they spoke about one thing, but each in its own language.

Indian medicine is very similar to Chinese medicine. According to her ideas, human body consists of a combination of three primary elements: wind (vayu), bile (pitta) and phlegm (kapha). In accordance with the idea of ​​micro- and macrocosm isomorphism, each of these elements embodies its own beginning: wind - movement, bile - fire and phlegm - softening. The disease is interpreted as an imbalance between these elements and an excessive predominance of one of them. When choosing a method of treatment, quite a lot of attention was paid, along with other factors, to the climate of the place in which the patient lived, and a change of residence was considered as one of the methods of treatment. Here, too, you can hear echoes of Chinese ideas (think of geomancy).

Linguistics occupied a special place in the structure of ancient Indian science. This was due to the deep reverence for oral speech, inherent in ancient Indian culture. As you remember, in the philosophical school of the Mimansics, it was stated that the natural existence of the world is supported by sacrifices, that sacrifice is, as it were, the foundation of the world, the world axis. In the sacrifice, the most important role was assigned to the pronunciation of magical formulas, sacred texts. The role of the text spoken by the voice is clearly visible in teaching, in which memorization was a very essential element. Distrust of the written word is an important characteristic of the ancient Indian mentality. "Writing, which appeared in India around the 1st millennium BC, was used for a long time only for economic and legal purposes. All spiritual culture - religious poetry, philosophy, literature and science - were transmitted orally. Even at a later time, when writing received widespread, mnemonics continued to be the main means of storing information.Reading from a written text, for example, was considered shameful as one of the "six unworthy ways of reading" (Culture of Ancient India, p. 373).

Of the many problems posed by Indian linguistics, I would like to dwell on the doctrine of sphot. Indian philosophical thought understood quite well that sounds by themselves cannot cause meaning, so the word exists in two forms: as a carrier of sounds and as a carrier of meaning. Sphota is sound as a carrier of meaning. Unlike the totality of sounds, sphota is not connected with time and is indivisible. "Sphota is a word placed in the mind" (Culture of Ancient India, p. 377) - claimed one of the largest linguists of India, Bhartrahari. Sphota is somewhat reminiscent of the Platonic idea, which is the indivisible essence of a thing. Later Indian linguists expressed this connection even more clearly, speaking of the photic of sound, the photic of sentence, and even the photic of the whole text.

Cosmology and geography

The universe of the "Vedas" was very simple: below - the Earth, flat and round, above - the firmament, along which the Sun, Moon and stars move. Between them is the airspace (anta-ricksha) where the birds, clouds and demigods are. This idea of ​​the world became more complicated with the development of religious thought.

The explanations put forward for the origin and evolution of the world had nothing to do with science. But all the religions of India have adopted some cosmological concepts that are fundamental to the Indian consciousness. They were strikingly different from the Semitic ideas that would influence Western thought for a long time: the world is very old, it is in an endless process of successive cyclical evolution and decline; there are other worlds besides ours.

The Hindus believed that the world was in the shape of an egg, Brahmanda, or the egg of Brahma, and was divided into twenty-one belts: Earth is the seventh from the top. Above the earth, six heavens rise above each other, corresponding to the increasing degrees of bliss and not connected with the planets, as among the Greeks. Below the earth was the patala, or lower world, which included seven levels. The abode of nagas and other mythical creatures, it was by no means considered an unpleasant place. Below the patala was purgatory - traka, also divided into seven circles, one worse than the other, since it was a place of punishment of souls. The world was suspended in free space and presumably isolated from other worlds.

The Buddhist and Jain cosmological scheme differed from the one just presented in many ways, but was ultimately based on the same concept. Both of them claimed that the Earth was flat, but at the beginning of our era, astronomers recognized the fallacy of this idea, and although it continued to prevail in religious subjects, enlightened minds knew that the Earth was spherical. Some calculations have been made of its size, the most recognized was the view of Brahmagupta (7th century AD), according to which the earth's circumference was estimated at 5000 yojanas - one yojana was equal to about 7.2 km. This figure is not so far from the truth, and it is one of the most accurate that have been established by astronomers of antiquity.

This small spherical Earth, according to astronomers, did not satisfy theologians, and later religious literature still described our planet as a large flat disk. Mount Meru rose in the center, around which the sun, moon and stars revolved. Meru was surrounded by four continents (dvipa) separated from the central mountain by oceans and named after those large trees that grew on the coast facing the mountain. In the southern continent where people lived, the typical tree was the jambu, so it was called Jambudvipa. The southern part of this continent, separated from the others by the Himalayas, was "the land of the sons of Bharata" (Bharata-varsha), or India. Bharatavarsha alone was 9,000 yojanas wide, while the entire Jambudvipa continent was 33,000 or, according to some sources, 100,000 yojanas.

Other elements, no less fantastic, were added to this fabulous geography. Jambudvipa is described in the Puranas as a ring surrounding Mount Meru and separated from the neighboring continent of Plakshadvipa by an ocean of salt! This, in turn, surrounded Jambudvipa, and so on until the last, seventh continent: each of them was round and separated from the other by an ocean of some substance - salt, molasses, wine, ghee, milk, curd and pure water. . This description of the world, which strikes more with the power of imagination than reliability, was tacitly admitted by Indian theologians, but astronomers could not ignore it and adapted it to their model of a spherical Earth, making Meru the axis of the globe and dividing its surface into seven continents.

Oceans of oil and seas of molasses hindered the development of true geographical science. The seven continents are absolutely impossible to correlate with real areas of the earth's surface - no matter how hard some modern historians try to identify them with regions of Asia. Only Alexandria, known from the first centuries of our era, and vague indications of the city of Romaka (Constantinople) found in astronomical works are reliable. But we are talking about practical knowledge that did not entail any research on the part of scientists.

Astronomy and calendar

One of the first sources that have come down to us, giving us information about astronomical knowledge in ancient India, is Jyotisha Vedanga. This work, certainly created around 500 B.C. e., belongs to that didactic literature, where applied Vedic knowledge is presented. We are talking here about primitive astronomy, the main purpose of which was to establish the dates of regular sacrifices. The celestial map was drawn using the various positions of the Moon, the nakshatras, literally "lunar houses", in relation to the fixed stars, well known since the era of the Rig Veda. This position changes according to a cycle that lasts approximately twenty-seven solar days and seven hours and forty-five minutes, and the sky was divided into twenty-seven regions, bearing the names of the constellations of the ecliptic - the probable orbit of the Sun, in relation to which the Moon passes each time its cycle. Subsequently, the sidereal month lengthened to eight hours beyond its twenty-seven solar days, and astronomers added a twenty-eighth, intermediate, nakshatra to correct the error.

It is claimed that Indian astronomy was at one time under Mesopotamian influence, but this has not been definitely established. But the influence of Greek and Roman astronomy, on the contrary, has been proven and, apparently, took place in the first centuries of our era.

Many Greek terms from the field of astronomy did indeed make their way into Sanskrit and later Indian languages. Five astronomical systems, siddhanta, were known in the 6th century. thanks to the astronomer Varahamihira: one was called "Romaka-siddhanta", the other - "Paulisha-siddhanta"; the name of the latter can be interpreted as a distorted name of the classical astronomer Paul of Alexandria.

India borrowed from Western astronomy the signs of the zodiac, the seven-day week, the hour, and many other concepts. She also adopted the use of astronomy for the purpose of divination. In the Gupta era, the old methods of divination were abandoned in favor of astrology. But the development that astronomy then received in India is still more due to the application of the achievements that Indian mathematicians have achieved. Thanks to these achievements, Indian astronomers were able to overtake the Greeks in a short time. In the 7th century the Syrian astronomer Sever Sebokht appreciated Indian astronomy and mathematics, and the Caliphs of Baghdad hired Indian astronomers. It was through the Arabs that Indian knowledge came to Europe.

The development of astronomy in India, as in other civilizations of antiquity, was limited by the lack of telescopes, but the methods of observation made it possible to make very accurate measurements, and the use of the decimal number system facilitated calculations. We do not know anything about the observatories of the Hindu period, but it is very possible that those that existed in the 17th-18th centuries. in Japur, Delhi and other places, equipped with extremely precise measuring instruments and erected on a giant staircase in order to reduce errors to a minimum, there were predecessors.

Only seven planets, graha, could be seen with the naked eye. These are Sun (Surya, Ravi), Moon (Chandra, Soma), Mercury (Budha), Venus (Shukra), Mars (Mangala), Jupiter (Brhaspati), Saturn (Shani). At the beginning of each great universal cycle, all the planets began their circulation, lining up in a row, and returned to the same position at the end of the cycle. The obvious unevenness of the motion of the planets was explained by the theory of epicycles, as in ancient and medieval astronomy. Unlike the Greeks, the Indians believed that the planets actually move in the same way, and the apparent difference in their angular movement is created by unequal distance from the Earth.

To be able to make calculations, astronomers adopted the geocentric planetary model, although at the end of the 5th century. Ar-yabhata expressed the idea that the Earth turns around its own axis and around the Sun. His successors knew this theory, but it never had a practical application. In the Middle Ages, the precession of the equinoxes, as well as the length of the year, the lunar month and other astronomical constants, were calculated with a certain degree of accuracy. These calculations were of great practical use and were often more accurate than those of Greco-Roman astronomers. Eclipses were calculated with great precision and their real cause was known.

The basic unit of the calendar was not a solar day, but a lunar day (tithi), thirty such days formed a lunar month (that is, four phases of the moon) - approximately twenty-nine and a half solar days. The month was divided into two halves - pacts beginning respectively with the full moon and the new moon. The fifteen days beginning with the new moon are called the "bright half" (shuklapaksha), the other fifteen are the "dark half" (krishnapaksha). According to the system in force in northern India and most of the Deccan, the month began and ended, as a rule, on the new moon. This Hindu calendar is still used for religious purposes throughout India.

The year consisted, as a rule, of twelve lunar months: nitra (March-April), Vaishakha (April-May), Jyayishtha (May-June), Ashadha (June-July), Shravana (July-August), Bhadrapada, or praushthapada (August-September), ashvina or ashvayuja (September-October), karttika (October-November), margashirsha or agrahayana (November-December), pauta or taisha (December-January), magha (January-February), phalguna (February-March). In pairs, months formed seasons (ritu). The six seasons of the Indian year were: vasanta (spring: March-May), grishma (summer: May-July), varsha (rains: July-September), sharad (autumn: September-November), hemanta (winter: November - January), shishira (fresh season: January - March).

But twelve lunar months equaled only three hundred and fifty-four days. This problem of the difference between the lunar year and the solar year was solved very early: sixty-two lunar months correspond to approximately sixty solar months, and one extra month was added to the year every thirty months, as was done in Babylon. Every second or third year thus consisted of thirteen months, that is, it was twenty-nine days longer than the others.
The Hindu calendar, despite its accuracy, was difficult to use, and it was so different from the solar calendar that it was impossible to correlate dates without complex calculations and correspondence tables. It is impossible even to immediately determine with complete certainty which month the date of the Hindu calendar falls on.

Dates are usually given in the following order: month, iaksha, tithi, and half of the month, abbreviated as shudi ("brilliant") or badi ("dark"). For example, "chaitra shudi 7" means the seventh day of the new moon of the month of chaitra. indian ayurveda cult religion

The solar calendar, introduced at that time by Western astronomy, has been known since the Gupta period, but it has supplanted the lunisolar only relatively recently. Obviously, before our era there was no single dating system. We know that in Rome the reckoning was conducted from the founding of the city - ab urbe condita. The most ancient documents of India, mentioning any date, indicate it in this form: such and such a year of the reign of such and such a sovereign. The idea of ​​tying a date to a relatively long period of time was probably introduced in India by invaders who came from the northwest, from the region where the most ancient records compiled in this way come from. Unfortunately, the Hindus did not adopt a unified system of reckoning, so that the chronology of some eras is sometimes difficult to reconstruct. So, scientists have been arguing for more than a hundred years about what date to take for the first year of the Kanishka era.

Logic and epistemology

India has created a system of logic, the fundamental basis of which is Gautama's Nyaya Sutra. This text, composed of short aphorisms and probably written in the first centuries of our era, was often commented on by subsequent authors. Nyaya was one of the six schools, darshan, orthodox philosophy. However, logic was not the exclusive privilege of this school. Buddhism and Jainism, as well as Hinduism, have studied and used it. Disputes contributed to its development, especially those that pitted theologians and logicians of the three faiths. Logic, dependent on religious doctrines, as well as epistemology, had to gradually free itself in order to become in the 13th century. the last teachers of Nyaya - the theoreticians of Navya-Nyaya - the science of pure reason. Interest in objective reality was also determined by another practice - medicine, to which we will return later, and the oldest treatise of which, Ayurveda, already contained logical judgments and evidence.

To a greater extent, Indian thought in this area was concerned with the question of pramanas - a concept that can be translated as "sources of knowledge." According to the medieval Nyaya doctrine, there are four pramanas: perception (pratyaksha); conclusion (anumana); inference by analogy or comparison (upamana), and a "word" (shabda), i.e., an authoritative statement worthy of trust, such as the Vedas.

The Vedanta school added to them intuition or presumption (arthapatti) and non-perception (anupalabadhi), which was an excessive invention of the school. These six modes of knowledge overlapped, and for Buddhists, all forms of knowledge fit into the first two. Jains generally recognized three: perception, inference and evidence. The materialists reduced everything to mere perception.

The study and endless criticism of the process of inference, on which the victory of dialectics in disputes depended, made it possible to discover incorrect reasoning and gradually get rid of them. The main sophisms were exposed: bringing to the point of absurdity (ar-thaprasanga), proof "in a circle" (chakra), dilemma (anyo-nyashraya), etc.

As a correct proof, an inference was accepted, the five-term form of which (panchavayava), however, was a little more complicated than that of the proof in Aristotelian logic. It included five premises: thesis (pratijna), argument (hetu), example (udaharana), application (upanaya), conclusion (niga-mana).

A classic example of an Indian syllogism:

1) a fire burns on the mountain,

2) because there is smoke above,

3) and where there is smoke, there is fire, as, for example, in the hearth;

4) the same thing happens on the mountain,

5) therefore, there is fire on the mountain.

The third premise of the Indian syllogism corresponds to the main conclusion of Aristotle, the second to the secondary, and the first to the conclusion. The Indian syllogism thus breaks the inference order of classical Western logic: the argument is formulated in the first two premises, justified by a general rule and example in the third premise, and finally confirmed by the repetition of the first two. The example (in the above inference, the hearth) was generally considered to be an essential part of the argument, which strengthened the persuasiveness of rhetoric. This established system of reasoning is, of course, the result of long practical experience. The Buddhists accepted the three-term syllogism, rejecting the fourth and fifth premises of orthodox reasoning as tautological.

It was believed that the basis for generalization (“where there is smoke, there is fire”), on which any proof is built, had the character of universal interconnectedness - vyaptiu, in other words, the constant interconnectedness of the sign (smoke) and a number of facts where it enters (an extension of the concept ). There have been many disputes about the nature and origin of this interconnectedness, the consideration of which gave rise to the theory of universals and the theory of particulars, which cannot be presented here due to their complexity.

An analysis of the Indian way of thinking would not be complete without a brief mention of the special epistemological relativism of Jainism. Jain thinkers, as well as some other dissenters, strongly rejected what in classical logic is called the principle of the excluded middle. The Jains, instead of two single possibilities: existence or non-existence, recognized seven modalities of being. Thus, we can say that an object, such as a knife, exists as such. In addition, we can say that it is not something else, such as a fork. It means that it exists as a knife and it does not exist as a fork, and we can say that, on the one hand, it is, and on the other, it is not. From another point of view, he is indescribable; its ultimate essence is unknown to us, and we cannot say anything definite about it: it is beyond the bounds of language. Combining this fourth possibility with the previous three, we get three new possibilities of assertion: he is, but his nature resists any description, he is, but his nature cannot be described, and at the same time he is and he is not, but his nature is indescribable. This system, based on the sevenfold statement, was called syadvada (doctrine "maybe") or saptab-hangi ("sevenfold division").

The Jains had another theory - the theory of "points of view", or the relativity of aspects of perception, according to which things are determined by something known and, therefore, exist only in that aspect in which they can be felt or comprehended. The mango tree can be seen as an individual being with its own height and shape, or as a representative of the "universal" mango tree, conveying the general concept of the mango tree without regard to its individual characteristics. Or, finally, one can consider it as it is at the moment, and note, for example, that it has ripe fruits, without thinking about either its past when it was a young tree, or about its future when it becomes firewood. You can even consider it from the point of view of the name - "mango tree" - and analyze all its synonyms and their relationships. There may be minute differences between these synonyms, which makes it possible to consider their shades and exact meanings.

Without a doubt, it is extremely difficult for modern logicians to understand this pedantic system, where epistemology, as we have seen, is mixed with semantics. Nevertheless, it testifies to a high level of theorizing and proves that Indian philosophers were fully aware that the world is more complex and subtle than we think, and that a thing in one of its aspects can be true and at the same time false - in friend.

Mathematics

Mankind owes almost everything to ancient India that concerns mathematics, the level of development of which in the time of the Guptas was much higher than that of other peoples of antiquity. The achievements of Indian mathematics are mainly due to the fact that the Indians had a clear concept of abstract number, which they distinguished from the numerical quantity or spatial extension of objects. Whereas among the Greeks mathematical science was more based on measurements and geometry, India went beyond these concepts early and, thanks to the simplicity of numerical notation, invented elementary algebra, which allowed calculations to be made more complex than those that the Greeks could do, and led to the study numbers by itself.

In the most ancient documents, dates and other numbers are written according to a system similar to that adopted by the Romans, Greeks, and Jews - in which different symbols were used to indicate tens and hundreds. But in the Gujarati record of 595 CE e. the date is indicated using a system that consists of nine digits and a zero, in which the position of the digit matters. Very soon, the new system is fixed in Syria and is used everywhere up to Vietnam itself. Thus, it is obvious that it was known to mathematicians several centuries before it appeared in the records. The editors of the records were more conservative in their ways of dating, and we see that in modern Europe the Roman system, though impractical, is still often used for the same purpose. We do not know the name of the mathematician who invented the simplified numbering system, but the most ancient mathematical texts that have come down to us are the anonymous Bakshali Manuscript, a copy from the original of the 4th century BC. n. e., and "Aryabhatya" Aryabhata, which dates from 499 AD. e., - suggest that such a existed.

Only at the end of the XVIII century. the science of ancient India became known to the Western world. From that time began a kind of conspiracy of silence, which continues to this day and prevents India from being credited with the invention of the decimal system. For a long time it was unreasonably considered an Arab achievement. The question arises: was there a zero in the first examples of the use of the new system? Indeed, they did not have a zero sign, but the positions of the numbers, of course, mattered. The oldest record containing zero, depicted as a closed circle, dates from the second half of the 9th century, while in the Cambodian record of the end of the 7th century. it is represented as a dot, probably the same way it was originally written in India, since in the Arabic system zero is also represented by a dot.

The conquest of Sindh by the Arabs in 712 contributed to the spread of Indian mathematics in the then expanding Arab world. About a century later, the great mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi appeared in Baghdad, who used his knowledge of the Indian decimal system in his famous treatise. Perhaps here we can talk about the influence that this outstanding mathematical work had on the further development of the science of numbers: three centuries after its creation it was translated into Latin and spread throughout Western Europe. Adelard de Bath, an English scholar of the 12th century, translated another work by Khorezmi called The Book of Algorithms of Indian Numbers. The name of the Arabic author remained in the word "algorithm", and the title of his main work "Hisab al-Jabr" gave rise to the word "algebra". Although Adelard was fully aware that Khorezmi owed much to Indian science, the algorithmic system was attributed to the Arabs, as was the decimal system of numbers. Meanwhile, Muslims remember its origin and usually also call the algorithm the word "hindizat" - "Indian art". In addition, if the Arabic alphabetic text is read from right to left, then the numbers are always written from left to right - as in Indian records. And although the Babylonians and Chinese had attempts to create a numbering system in which the value of a number depended on the place it occupied in the number, it was in India in the first centuries of our era that the simple and effective system currently used throughout the world arose. The Maya used zero in their system, also giving importance to the position of the digit. But although the Maya system was most likely older, it, unlike the Indian, did not receive any distribution in the rest of the world.

Thus, the importance of Indian science for the West cannot be overestimated. Most of the great discoveries and inventions that Europe is proud of would not have been possible without the mathematical system created in India. In terms of the influence that the unknown mathematician, who invented the new system, had on world history, and his analytical gift, he can be considered the most significant person, after the Buddha, that India has ever known. Medieval Indian mathematicians such as Brahmagupta (7th century), Mahavira (9th century), Bhaskara (12th century), in turn, made discoveries that became known in Europe only in the Renaissance and later. They operated with positive and negative values, invented elegant ways to extract square and cube roots, they knew how to solve quadratic equations and some types of indefinite equations. Ar-yabhata calculated the approximate value of the number l, which is still used today and which is the expression of the fraction 62832/20000, i.e. 3.1416. This value, much more accurate than that calculated by the Greeks, was brought by Indian mathematicians to the ninth decimal place. They made a number of discoveries in trigonometry, spherical geometry and infinitesimal calculus, mostly related to astronomy. Brahmagupta went further in the study of indefinite equations than what Europe learned by the 18th century. In medieval India, the mathematical interconnection of zero (shunya) and infinity was well understood. Bhaskara, refuting his predecessors who claimed that x: 0 = x, proved that the result is infinity.

Physics and chemistry

Physics remained very dependent on religion, changing its theories slightly from sect to sect. The classification of the world according to elements arose in the era of the Buddha, or perhaps earlier. All schools recognized at least four elements: earth, air, fire and water. The orthodox Hindu schools and Jainism added a fifth, akasha (ether). It was recognized that air does not expand indefinitely, and it was very difficult for the Indian mind, with its fear of emptiness, to comprehend empty space. Five elements were considered to be the conducting medium of sensory perception: earth - smell, air - touch, fire - vision, water - taste and ether - hearing. The Buddhists and Ajivikas rejected ether, but the Ajivikas added life, joy and suffering, which, according to their teaching, were in a certain sense material, - thereby bringing the number of elements to seven.

Most schools believed that the elements were formed by atoms, with the exception of the ether. Indian atomism, of course, has nothing to do with Greece and Democritus, since it was already formulated by the unorthodox Kakuda Katya-yana, an older contemporary of the Buddha. Jains believed that all atoms were added on 07/25/2009

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Wisdom of the Vedas

The word "veda" is translated from Sanskrit as "knowledge", "wisdom" (compare with Russian "to know" - to know). The Vedas are considered one of the most ancient texts in the world, the earliest cultural monument on our planet.

Indian researchers believe that they were created around 6000 BC, European science refers them to later times.

In Hinduism, it is believed that the Vedas are eternal and appeared immediately after the creation of the Universe and were dictated directly by the gods.

The Vedas describe many branches of scientific knowledge, for example, medicine - Ayurveda, weapons - Astra Shastra, architecture - Sthapatya Veda, etc.

There are also so-called Vedangas - auxiliary disciplines, which include phonetics, metrics, grammar, etymology and astronomy.

The Vedas tell in detail about very many things, and researchers all over the world still find in them various information about the structure of the world and man, unexpected for ancient times.

Great mathematicians

The well-known Indologist, academician Grigory Maksimovich Bongard-Levin, in collaboration with Grigory Fedorovich Ilyin, published the book “India in Antiquity” in 1985, in which he studied many remarkable facts about science in the Vedas, for example, about algebra and astronomy.

In particular, the role of mathematics in a number of other sciences is highly appreciated in Vedanga Jyotish: “Like a comb on a peacock’s head, like gem crowning a snake, so ganita is at the top of the sciences known in Vedanga.

In the Vedas, algebra is also known - “avyakta-ganita” (“the art of calculating with unknown quantities”) and the geometric method of converting a square into a rectangle with a given side.

Arithmetic and geometric progressions are also described in the Vedas, for example, they are mentioned in Panchavimsha Brahmana and Shatapatha Brahmana.

Curiously, the famous Pythagorean theorem was also known in the earliest Vedas.

And modern researchers claim that the Vedas contain information both about infinity and about the binary system of calculation and data caching technology, which is used in search algorithms.

Astronomers from the banks of the Ganges

The level of astronomical knowledge of the ancient Indians can also be judged by numerous references in the Vedas. For example, religious rites were tied to the phases of the moon and its position on the ecliptic.

Vedic Indians, in addition to the Sun and the Moon, knew all five planets visible to the naked eye, they knew how to navigate in the starry sky, connected the stars into constellations (nakshatras).

Full lists of them are given in the Black Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda, and the names have remained virtually unchanged for many centuries. The ancient Indian system of nakshatras corresponds to those given in all modern star catalogs.

In addition, the Rig Veda calculated the speed of light with maximum accuracy. Here is the text from the Rig Veda: "With deep reverence, I bow to the sun, which travels a distance of 2002 yojins in half a nimeshi."

Yojana is a measure of length, nimesha is a unit of time. If we translate yojins and nimeshis into modern system calculus, you get the speed of light at 300,000 km / s.

Cosmic Vedas

Moreover, the Vedas talk about space travel and various aircraft (vimanas) that successfully overcome the earth's gravity.

For example, the Rig Veda tells of a miraculous chariot:

"Born without horses, without reins, worthy of praise

A three-wheeled chariot circles space.

“Faster than thought the chariot moved, like a bird in the sky,

rising to the Sun and Moon and descending to the Earth with a loud roar ... "

According to ancient texts, the chariot was driven by three pilots, and it could land on land and on water.

The Vedas even indicate specifications chariots - it was made of several types of metal and worked on liquids called madhu, rasa and anna.

The Indian Sanskrit scholar Kumar Kanjilal, author of the book Vimanas of Ancient India, states that rasa is mercury, madhu is alcohol made from honey or fruit juice, anna is alcohol from rice or vegetable oil.

Here it is appropriate to recall the ancient Indian manuscript of the Samarangana Sutradahra, which also speaks of a mysterious chariot flying on mercury:

“Strong and durable should be his body, made of light material, like a large flying bird. Inside you should place a device with mercury and an iron heating device under it. By means of the power that is hidden in mercury, which sets in motion the carrying whirlwind, a person inside this chariot can fly long distances across the sky in the most amazing way ... The chariot develops the power of thunder thanks to mercury. And she immediately turns into a pearl in the sky.

According to the Vedas, the gods had chariots different size, including the huge ones. Here is how the flight of a huge chariot is described:

“Houses and trees trembled, and small plants were uprooted by a terrifying wind, caves in the mountains were filled with a roar, and the sky seemed to split into pieces or fall from the great speed and mighty roar of the air crew ...”.

Medicine at the highest level

But not only space is discussed in the Vedas, they also say a lot about man, his health and biology in general. For example, the Grabha Upanishad talks about the intrauterine life of a child like this:

“The embryo, which has lain in the womb day and night, is a kind of mixture (like porridge) of elements; after seven days it becomes like a bubble; after two weeks it becomes a clot, and after a month it hardens. After two months, the head region begins to develop; after three months legs; after four - the stomach and buttocks; after five - the spine; after six - the nose, eyes and ears; after seven, the embryo begins to rapidly develop its vital functions, and after eight, it is almost a ready-made little person.

It is worth noting here that European science reached such knowledge in embryology only centuries later - for example, the Dutch doctor Renier de Graaff discovered human ovarian follicles only in 1672.

In the same place, in the Grabha Upanishad, it is said about the structure of the heart:

“There are one hundred and one blood vessels in the heart, each of them has a hundred more vessels, each having seventy-two thousand branches.”

And this is not the only amazing knowledge in ancient books. The connection of male and female chromosomes in the zygote was discovered in the 20th century, but they are mentioned in the Vedas, in particular in the Bhagavata Purana.

The Srimad Bhagavatam tells about the structure and structure of the cell, as well as about microorganisms, the existence of which modern science was only discovered in the 18th century.

In the Rigveda there is such a text addressed to the Ashvins - it deals with prosthetics and, in general, the successes of medicine in antiquity:

“And you have done, O multi-useful ones, so,

That the grieving singer began to see well again.

Since the leg was cut off like a bird's wing,

You immediately attached Vishpala

An iron leg, so that it rushes to the appointed reward.

And here we are talking about a process that is still inaccessible to our medicine - a complete rejuvenation of the body:

“... aged body cover

You have taken off Cyavana like a garment.

You extended the life span of the one abandoned by everyone, oh amazing.

And they even made him the husband of young wives.”

Another point is interesting. The Vedas were translated in past centuries, at the level of ideas about science and technology of that time. It is possible that new translations of ancient texts will reveal to us completely new knowledge, which modern science has not yet reached.