India's Contributions to Humanity
A user named "FrostHammer" commented on Salon.com:
"India is one giant open sewer with one billion poor people who shit in the
streets and worship cows and rats and stare at blank walls for decades,
finding 'enlightenment'...They cannot afford to eat meat even if their
stupid religion allowed it."
—FrostHammer
The myth that people in India are starving because they will not kill the
cows persists, even though it is comparable to saying people in Latin
America are impoverished because they will not kill the unborn.
In a detailed study of cows in West Bengal, Stewart Odend'hal of the
University of Missouri found that far fro depriving humans of food, cows eat
only inedible remains of harvested crops (rice hulls, tops of sugarcane,
etc.) and grass.
"Basically," he said, "the cattle convert items of hardly any direct human
value into products of immediate utility."
India's past economic and food crises were often due to occasional severe
drought, political upheaval, a centralized government stifling free
enterprise, a corrupt bureaucracy, or unnecessary industrialization, than
with sacred cows.
This is true of a number of Third World countries.
A panel of experts at the Agency for International Development cited in the
Congressional Record for December 2, 1980, concluded: "India produces enough
to feed all its people."
Raising animals for food is a waste of resources!
Food expert Frances Moore Lappe, author of the 1971 bestseller Diet for a
Small Planet, once said in a television interview that we should look at a
piece of steak as if it were a Cadillac.
"What I mean," she explained, "is that we in America are hooked on
gas-guzzling automobiles because of the illusion of cheap petroleum.
Likewise, we got hooked on a grain-fed, meat-centered diet because of the
illusion of cheap grain."
In his book Proteins: Their Chemistry and Politics, Dr. Aaron Altschul notes
that in terms of calorie units per acre, a diet of grains, vegetables, and
beans will support twenty times as many people than a meat-centered diet.
A report submitted to the United Nations World Food Conference concurs:
"The overconsumption of meat by the rich means hunger for the poor. This
wasteful agriculture must be changed -- by the suppression of feedlots where
beef are fattened on grains, and even a massive reduction of beef cattle."
"India is one giant open sewer with one billion poor people who shit in the
streets and worship cows and rats and stare at blank walls for decades,
finding 'enlightenment.'"
—FrostHammer
In his 1980 PBS miniseries, Cosmos, Dr. Carl Sagan said if we are to revere
a power greater than ourselves, does it not make sense to revere the sun?
"Our ancestors revered the sun, and our ancestors were far from foolish."
Christians in the West, enjoying the past five hundred years of secular
social progress (all of which goes against the Bible), should be honest
enough to admit they can learn from the so-called "pagan" religions and
civilizations before them.
A letter writer to my local paper years ago similarly claimed, like
FrostHammer, that because “intellectually enlightened Western European
Christians came to America 400 years ago,” America does not “resemble Laos,
India, Ethiopia or Iran,” but instead possesses “the cities and the
institutions that are the envy of the world.”
This statement appears to be based more on prejudice than on fact.
There have been numerous civilizations throughout history; many were learned
in the arts, sciences, humanities and metaphysics.
Athens, for example, was a democracy devoted to human excellence in mind and
body, to philosophy, and to the cultivation of the art of living.
While Christianity kept the West in the Dark Ages for over a millennium, the
civilizations in Asia were flourishing.
Hindu historian A. Kalyanaraman supports this observation by citing evidence
from the principle Hindu scriptures, known as the Vedas, as well as the
testimony of Megasthenes, who journeyed from the Greco-Roman world to India
during the 3rd century BC.
Kalyanaraman finds a great deal of political freedom and equality in ancient
India, where social mobility was acknowledged.
The Vedas describe numerous saints and sages who were of low birth, but were
considered by their virtue to have been raised to the highest status.
The Greek Megasthenes observed:
“The law ordains that none among them under any circumstances be a slave;
enjoying freedom, they shall expect the equal right to it which others
possess...
"All Indians are free and not one of them is a slave. The Indians do not use
even aliens as slaves; much less a countryman of their own.”
The earliest moral and legal codes (Dharma-sastras and Niti-sastras)
originated in India, as did the earliest representative institutions (Sabha
and Parishad).
A modern Western text, India: Yesterday and Today, also says, “the four
orders...of Hindu society...were classes in the Western sense rather than
castes in the Indian manner.”
Long before Columbus’ era, India had a reputation throughout the world for
its opulence. “The part of India known as Malabar,” wrote Marco Polo, “was
the richest and noblest country in the world.”
Kalyanaraman writes that Egypt traded ivory, precious stones, gold and
sandalwood with India, while Rome traded Indian spices—mostly cinnamon and
cassia.
The Sanskrit literatures known as the Puranas mention sandalwood from
Malaysia. Ancient India’s epic poem, the Mahabharata, even compares the
women of the Mediterranean to the goddesses of the heavenly planets.
The Rig Veda, one of four Vedas, refers to metallurgy. The Vedas also refer
to mining iron ore, copper, brass and bronze. By the 6th century AD, India
was far ahead of Europe in industrial chemistry.
The Hindus were masters at calcination, distillation, sublimation, steaming,
making anesthetics, soporific powders, metallic salts, compounds and alloys.
India was producing steel during the era of Alexander. Centuries later,
steel would be introduced to Europe by the Muslims.
Jivaka (6th century BC) was adept at surgical operations such as trepanning
of the skull, abdominal openings to cure hernia, etc.
Panini’s classical work on grammar, the Ashtadhyani contains a comprehensive
list of parts of the body (human anatomy) as well as rare and common
diseases.
He further describes ligaments, sutres, lymphatics, nerve plexus, adipose
and vascular tissues, mucous and synovial membranes with astonishing
accuracy.
Susruta dealt with surgery, obstetrics, dieting, baths, drugs, infant
feeding, personal hygiene and medicinal education. He also understood the
process of digestion and the functions of the stomach and liver.
Bhavamisra, in 1550, detailed the circulation of blood in a book written on
anatomy and physiology, a century before the West.
Susruta described cataract surgery, hernia, cesarean section, the dissection
of cadavers and the use of skin grafts to repair a torn ear.
Rhinoplasty (fixing a broken nose) was a common practice among Indian
physicians. A drug called “sammohini” was used as an anesthetic.
Ancient Indians were experts in plastic surgery until the 18th century. They
knew the importance of taking a pulse. They were aware that mosquito bites
transmit diseases as far back as the 6th century BC.
Square roots and cube roots and the “Pythagorean” theorem are mentioned in
the Sulbha Sutras of Bodhayana. (700 BC)
Bodhayana also calculated the areas of triangles, circles, and trapezoids
and determined pi = 3.14136 when measuring and constructing temple altars.
Aryabhata (5th century AD) drew up a table of sines and provided India with
a system of trigonometry more sophisticated than that of the Greeks.
Ancient mathematical texts such as the Jyotisha Vedanga dealt with geometry,
fractions, quadratic and cubic equations, algebra, permutations and
combinations.
In the West, we have been taught to call our base-ten system of numeration
(which replaced Roman numerals) “Arabic numerals.”
India gave the world the base-ten numerical system, our modern numerical
script, and (many thanks to the Buddhists!) the concept of zero as a
placeholder and a numerically recorded quantity.
Indian mathematics came to the West through the Arabs. The Arabs themselves
called mathematics “Hindisat,” or “Indian art.”
Before Newton, Bhaskara (1150 AD) was well-acquainted with the principles of
differential calculus and the concept of infinity.
Astronomers such as Vachaspati (800 AD) anticipated the foundations of solid
coordinate geometry centuries before Descartes.
They also explained the movement of celestial bodies in terms of the earth’s
rotation and motion about the sun. Charaka, a physician from the 7th century
BC, described the wave motion of light, had a calendar of 12 lunar months
and classified stars into zodiacal constellations.
India had rockets in the late 18th century; they were even used in military
battles against the British. This generated interest in rocket technology in
England.
The Indian people built “iron forts and thousand pillared halls” and were
described by observers as adorning themselves in silk, wool, linen and
cotton.
For thousands of years, India has enjoyed music, orchestral bands, dance,
song, stage acting and all the other fine arts.
A. Kalyanaraman claims that in comparison to other parts of the world,
slavery was virtually nonexistent. He admits there were various forms of
indentured servitude, but says they weren't as brutal as those in the West.
Kalyanaraman further insists that the whole of Southeast Asia received most
of its culture from India. India gave the world rice, cotton, sugarcane,
spices and chess.
Indian philosophy and metaphysics can be found in Pythagoras, Plato,
Plotinus, Emerson, Thoreau, and Schopenhauer.
History must not be written from a Western, colonialist perspective. These
are just some of India’s contributions to humanity.
Go on to: Instant Karma
Return to: Articles