balan says:

most of the ancient technolgy was lost mainly due one resons.selfishness.those who know wont like to record.if it is recorded then that texts are not made available to all.that texts too will be written deliberatly in a language which wont be understood by others.
in modern times printing has advanced and people like to publish books.only in india books are very costly even without taxes.even now detailed books with pictures are not published in india not by indians.indian normally dont love knowledge.so they are unworthy to carry forward the learning ,research etc.look at the numerous reserch organisations run by government.there is no lasting benifit to inidans from them only to plunder the treasury filled by us.

Alastair/Sakundra/Iskander says:

Babylonian earthernware jars with anodes and cathodes, as described above, were excavated in Iraq and are now in the British Museum.

You may be interested to know that small votive statues with plated gold surfaces, have also been discovered in Iraq.

The statues were originally assumed to be covered in gold leaf, until it was discovered that the gold was only three microns in thickness.

Looks like thats what the ancient batteries were used for.

Astonishing, but if you think about it, not totally suprising.

Just as now, there have always been guys who like experimenting, fiddling and messing around, seeing what they can make to impress their friends, their boss or (more importantly) their wives and girlfriends- especially if they can sell their invention!).

They’ve been doing it for thousands of years.

Batteries are not difficult to make.

(Get a lemon or an orange, stick a piece of lead or zinc in it stick a piece of copper or brass into another part of the fruit the put the lead or zinc and copper to your tongue and feel the tingle of .5v!)

This must have been done many times before someone decided to experiment and explored the possiblities of his new found energy and discovered that he could use it to make small bronze statues of the gods look like gold.

(No doubt his wife was very, very impressed!)

The problem with this is the applications are limited. Unless you also have the technology to make use of your electricity, its a bit of a dead end.

Now- if 5000 years ago, an ancient Indian or Persian had noticed how the steam from a boiling kettle will lift its lid, then made the leap of genius into recognising the power of expanding steam…

Had that happened- where would we be now?

Thrown in a bit of inspired thinking and knowledge passed down either by word of mouth or writing

Suchin says:

Gurudev,

I suggest with your knowledge you can start exploring more and more and start a series of interpretations of sciences and probably some of them inventions/discoveries which our ancient indians have already done and written into such verses in vedas.

Isnt this what we need today? if we just claim Gaandhaari gave birth to 100 kauravas was actually a Cloning technology used in those days ….we must have be having cure for cancer, AIDS, technologies which we cant even imagine at this age!! ….please start a page on these let us all try to contribute our thoughts into it.

Thanks for all the extraordinary work you been doing on this website. I have great admiration for you.

Suchin

Srinivas says:

Now, now.. If electricity and/or batteries were remotely ever used in ancient India, why did we ever lose it? China touts most modern inventions like printing press, gun powder and rockets, why did India just *lose* it?
I am not sure about this.

Chuck says:

The Buddha has narrated 550 previous Jatakas. These are the previous births of himself, mostly in human form but also in non human (hasthi, vanara, etc.) forms. The best description I have ever seen in an ancient text to the actual use of electricity is in the Maha Ummagga Jataka of Buddha. Here there is actual reference to the swithcing on and off of lights, so much like what we have today!! its amazing and I am trying to find others who have read this and would like to hear their interpretations. Like all Jataka stories the Ummagga Jataka is also written in Pali verse. The best that I could find in English translation is the one from the Sinhalese version (of Ceylon) which is available on line now at
http://www.archive.org/details/ummaggajatakathe00yatarich

I would

Manish Chhetri says:

What’s the source of this?? Very interesting read