Some Internationally well-known award winning scientist comes to India and lectures about how science began only in the post renaissance period of Europe and our people clap.
This is what happens when an audience meant to listen to scientific lecture and the person meant to lecture science starts talking about and listening to history instead.
So here is what they should really be doing to test their faith in what was said and what was heard.
Both the audience and the scientist should read lectures, articles and books not pertaining to science authored by great scientists like Einstein, Bohr, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Oppenheimer, Neils Bohr, etc.
Then they should read writers, historians etc like George Bernard Shaw, Arnold Toynbee, Mark Twain, Will Durant, B G Rele, Romain Rolland, Sylvia Leve, etc.
Then they should start reading about the history behind the names like Aryabhatta, Charaka, Sushruta, Brahmagupta, Bhaskaracharya, etc.
Then they should wonder how could Pythagoras write a theorem without ever providing a proof for it and yet the theorem be named after him, and what Voltaire said about the source of Pythagoras’ knowledge, and when was the first proof of this theorem provided, and by whom? And many other instances like this.
Then they should do a little research into the Origin of Mathematics as we use today and try to do a Phd thesis on whether science and technology as we know today could have still been achieved using the mathematics based on Roman Numeral System.
Then they should go on a world tour visiting places like ancient Iron Pillars in India (For ex: in Delhi) which has withstood more than thousand years of rough whether without rusting and understand how something not known even centuries after post renaissance could exist millennium before it! Visit the Pyramids of Egypt and see if there are any machines available in this post renaissance period today which can lift the stone blocks as huge as the ones used to build the Pyramids, and to those great heights.
And after all this they should get back to the same auditorium again and now start talking about when Science began – and this time with accurately translated copies of the world’s oldest literary works, like the vedas, the upanishads, the various samhitas, the yoga sutras, Buddhist literature etc.
If they feel it doesn’t make any sense, then they should read a bit about actual science now – quantum mechanics for instance, and try to find what things like Schrodinger’s Wave Equation, non-locality, the concept of time, the nature of reality, hidden variable theories, uncertainty principle, etc really mean. And again read what Heisenberg, Bohr, Schrodinger etc said about their quest to find the meanings of these terms.
And finally, the sentence “Science began only in the post renaissance period in Europe” should be displayed on the screen.
We started with an expert in field A, making comments about a field B in which he lacked expertise – that is how we ended up with this Joke. After all, man did not start breathing only after the Oxygen was discovered.
Postface
Don’t get confused with the beginning of industrialization to be the origin of Science. You cannot start building machines in the same age of discovering metals. Claiming that man started thinking scientifically five centuries back inspite of having the same intelligent brain for millions of years is like claiming new born babies remain kids for 20 years and suddenly become engineers, doctors, etc in their 21st year.
By the way what we have achieved in this post industrialization world is visible today in the climate change summits, save earth campaigns, emission cut down treaties, pollution management boards, etc.
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It feels awesome every time I read such patriotic articles, but then it makes me wonder. Did it all happen because the western people were bad?
Its been well known that the creation and destruction of the ultimate building blocks of any universe doesn’t happen spontaneously. So it might have been with spiritual gnyana. Where and why did all this spiritual energy come from?
After wondering for a long time one day it dawned on me. Would it have flown from the west? Everything I had heard, read and seen (Movies/Documentaries) made this belief firmer all the time.
Why did an organisation torture and suppress people who tried to understand the universe in a newer way even if the new way was more perfect? What is the core message behind the zomby movies? or the vampires or their concepts of heroes? or their belief in celebrating pain?
Would it all have been the effect of Sun? Which acting over a long period of time established the flow of spiritual energy towards the land of rising sun leaving the land of setting sun in its vaccum?
I accept this theory undermines the efforts of some great individuals calling it mere effect of a global phenomenon rather than the fruit of his personal greatness. But trying to think from the true indian philosophy, I find there is no salvation we can obtain by fighting over the definitive past.
It would be best to work for a better future gathering all our efforts rather than blaming others for whatever wrong they did. After all, they might just have been innocent wanderers searching for their lost spirit.
I am sorry if I offended anyone’s feelings with this. I thought speaking my heart out would relax me. It’s been an honour reading your articles and although I had for some time tried learning from you, I couldn’t be consistant enough.
Great work. Keep Up!
Srikanth Rangdal
I think everything destroyed during Yugasandhi (The time interval between two yugas)… I guess its somewhere between 3000-5000BC…. That’s the time which is called as pre-historic-westeners called it. They turned uncivilized because of lack of knowledge and had Ages (bronze age, Iron age etc), while we, who possessed the knowledge still sustained after those death blows. Thus Globalization turned to localization. Science (that’s what we call the present day knowledge) evolved. They came back from what they were and assumed the whole world to be like them – only fools do so.
People say proudly that they have invented and discovered something. But, they did nothing. Anything which exists, exists in this world irrespective of anything (Newton’s first law)… :)…. Knowledge existed, is existing and will exist as long as human race exists. They -westeners- can’t claim it to be their invention. Its no one’s invention, its god’s creation. I Sometimes wonder, why god only gifted human beings to think of all the matters of this universe, unlike animals who just think of their moment of life and food procurement. Its then that the knowledge is born and never it was discovered. Poor fellows don’t know what it is. This reminds me of Swami Vivekananda’s journal on knowledge and how to uncover it.Anyways good article guruji.You excel again…
Also wonder why ancestors inspite of such knowledge din’t go for industrialization??? should we applaud them they were conscious about nature???
I completely agree with u Usri. We should to applaud their consciousness on nature. I think the mass destructive weapons, capitalist economy, social imbalances and many more are results of human abusing the nature. I believe that through Veda its taught to us to see god through nature. There was a proper Ecobalance bcos what we took from nature ends in nature. I am so amazed with the thoughts and knowledge put through the Veda.
Well said Guru. Just today we colleagues spoke about climatic changes, monsoon pattern change. We felt proud of ourselves that with a period of couple of centuries we changed eco-system… are are worried about energy source and find source in moon/march.. Wah wah… WE ARE GRT WITH SUCH INTELLIGENCE . Or is it destructive foolishness. digging owns grave..
– ursri
Hey guru,how far have you come with your alien twist to god book.Please reply
I have always doubted the stone age theories of the archaeologists.I think the cycles of yugas or gradual decline and progress of mankind in cycles seems more plausible.
good one……..
very well said .
we should learn to respect our ancient achievement .
Great post. Agree with you