India is one of the oldest and richest civilizations in the world. It is home to the world's first planned cities, where every house had its own bathroom and toilet five thousand years ago. The Ancient Indians have not only given us yoga, meditation and complementary medicines, but they have furthered our knowledge of science, maths - and invented Chaturanga, which became the game of chess.
According to Albert Einstein, they "taught us how to count", as they invented the numbers 1-9 and 'zero', without which there would be no computers or digital age. Unfairly we call this system of counting Arabic numbers - a misplaced credit.
Two thousand years ago the Indians pioneered plastic surgery, reconstructing the noses and ears on the faces of people who had been disfigured through punishment or warfare. They performed eye operations such as cataract removal and invented inoculation to protect their population from Smallpox, saving thousands of lives.
To create images of their gods they invented a technique of casting bronze called 'Lost Wax', a five-millennia old process still in use today. India was one of the first civilizations to successfully extract Iron from ore and they quickly learnt how to cast huge structures with it - some of them surviving. Their metallurgists went on to invent steel which they called Wotz. It would take the British until the 19th century to come up with the same substance.
In 1790 the Indians defeated the British Army in the battle of Pollilur with a secret invention – the rocket. The British eventually stole the idea and used it against Napoleon's fleet.
But perhaps the most important invention the Indians have given us is cotton. 3500 years ago whilst we were lumbering around in animal skins and itchy wool they were cultivating a plant and weaving it into a material that would revolutionise Britain. They also pioneered the printing and dyeing of cotton in a staggering array of colours and invented the spinning wheel - something Europe wouldn't catch up with until the Middle Ages. The mechanisation of this simple device by Hargreaves and Arkwright led to the industrial revolution and turned Britain into a superpower.
There's nothing wrong with being proud about one's own heritage but, although I don't know enough about it, I am suspicious of any treatment of the whole region as a single homogeneous culture, which is the style this article adopts. Moreover, the author is deciding what is important/unimportant with no consideration of respective merits eg.
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But perhaps the most important invention the Indians have given us is cotton. 3500 years ago whilst we were lumbering around in animal skins and itchy wool they were cultivating a plant and weaving it into a material that would revolutionise Britain.
It simply assumes that cotton is superior. I would argue that wool was far superior for protection against cold in northern european climes. Inuit would argue that you need furs, and not just any fur but reindeer fur.
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Their metallurgists went on to invent steel which they called Wotz. It would take the British until the 19th century to come up with the same substance.
That's simply wrong. Anglo Saxons used charcoal and pumped air over liquid iron to burn out the imputrities, to produce steel. The steel produced around Southampton was pretty good too. We can talk about advances in quality and production of steel, but it not true to say that steel was first produced in Britain in the 19th cent.
The article just omits things that ought really to be considered. On the point of colours and dyes, it implies that these are a result of cotton production. It's not' It's to do with the local availability of substances from which colours can be extracted. Bright colours and dyes were available at a very early age. The reason why most fabrics used duller earthy colours is because of the cost of the brighter dyes, bright blues being an exception.
Originally posted by Harry Amphlett: It's just a poor article.
That's maybe a little harsh. Even though I do agree with your observations about some of the points Sanj made, his post nevertheless acts as a very useful starting point about a subject I confess I know little about, namely the heritage of Indian history. He at least makes the wider point that this is a culture with a proud history with several achievements that I was not aware of. We in the UK I think generally tend to think of India as a backward 3rd world country, despite the economic boom that it is experiencing which threatens to turn it into a future economic super power, in its own way as significant as the Industrial Reveolution as for the UK. It is a bit scary that they have the bomb with a more volatile neighbour in Pakistan, but so far they have shown themselves to be a modern, responsible secular democracy as Alec A points out. So apart from curry, tea, Gandhi, Sachin Tendulkar, the Taj Mahal, what have the Indians done for us.......
dont want to go too deep, harry amphlett said enough, but the indians nicked the idea for rockets off the chinese, who were far more advanced than both india and britain.
Sanj Singh - It's wonderful that you have pride in your country and people, however that pride does not give you license to take so many liberties.
The people that you are talking about are NOT Indians, they are Dravidians. Since the term Indian is derived from the Arian god Indra (they were illiterates), we can safely say "Historically" that the term Indian applies ONLY to Caucasians and Caucasian blends. As you probably know, the Indians horribly marginalized indigenous people after the conquest. (I don't think that indigenous people would have imposed the caste system on themselves).
I would also point out, that though the original civilization encompassed a larger area than that of modern Pakistan-India, by all indications, it was a peaceful land. That has not been achieved since, say thank you to the Arians.
You are on shaky ground with mathematics, the Egyptians, Sumerians, and the Olmec (Xia) of the Americas, were all highly advanced mathematicians who used the zero.
Planned cities were common in Egypt, Sumer, Crete (Minoans) and the Americas. Flush toilets were also used in Crete, who came first is anybodies guess at this point. Textile production (linen) probably began in Egypt.
The Indus Valley civilization was certainly one of mankind’s first, and original, great civilizations. However, exactly what things originated there is hard to say.
If you would like a more in-depth knowledge of the first civilizations, may I suggest this site? http://www.realhistoryww.com
Thanks for your responses there many good points raised. I would like to point out that article isn't mine but from "another" website I "copied and pasted" from another website. Hence the link at the top.
Originally posted by passingthru: Sanj Singh - It's wonderful that you have pride in your country and people, however that pride does not give you license to take so many liberties.
The people that you are talking about are NOT Indians, they are Dravidians. Since the term Indian is derived from the Arian god Indra (they were illiterates), we can safely say "Historically" that the term Indian applies ONLY to Caucasians and Caucasian blends. As you probably know, the Indians horribly marginalized indigenous people after the conquest. (I don't think that indigenous people would have imposed the caste system on themselves).
I would also point out, that though the original civilization encompassed a larger area than that of modern Pakistan-India, by all indications, it was a peaceful land. That has not been achieved since, say thank you to the Arians.
You are on shaky ground with mathematics, the Egyptians, Sumerians, and the Olmec (Xia) of the Americas, were all highly advanced mathematicians who used the zero.
Planned cities were common in Egypt, Sumer, Crete (Minoans) and the Americas. Flush toilets were also used in Crete, who came first is anybodies guess at this point. Textile production (linen) probably began in Egypt.
The Indus Valley civilization was certainly one of mankind’s first, and original, great civilizations. However, exactly what things originated there is hard to say.
If you would like a more in-depth knowledge of the first civilizations, may I suggest this site? http://www.realhistoryww.com
Realhistory seems to have ignored Western Europe completely! - yet people have recently started to appreciate that they had considerable civilisations: eg the Celtic and pre-Celtic.
Stonehenge and related sites in Britain and Newgrange and related sites in Ireland attest to this.
Newgrange and its related sites seem to indicate advanced knowledge of the stars and moon ( it seems they could track the 18.5 year cycle of the moon).
The people that you are talking about are NOT Indians, they are Dravidians. Since the term Indian is derived from the Arian god Indra (they were illiterates), we can safely say "Historically" that the term Indian applies ONLY to Caucasians and Caucasian blends. As you probably know, the Indians horribly marginalized indigenous people after the conquest. (I don't think that indigenous people would have imposed the caste system on themselves).
Dravidians are Indians old boy, they are the indigenous peoples. Goping on about origins of what u call someone is irrelevant.
link This Aryan invasion has been dismissed to the dustbin of human history from recent archaeological evidence and application of common sense:
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Stephen Oppenheimer concluded by genetic studies that people moved into India from Africa initially and rest of the world population were descendents of this group. University of Cambridge researchers Michael Petraglia and Hannah James came to the similar conclusion by analyzing fossils, artifacts, and genetic data. So if there was a migration, it was from India to Europe and not the other way. Does this prove that there was no Aryan Invasion/Migration?
While the above migrations happened about 85,000 years back, the theory of Aryan Invasion/Migration talks about what happened around 4000 years back. This is what Dr. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, who has been excavating in the Indus city of Harappa has to say
The transition from one culture to the next was gradual as seen at Harappa, and there is no evidence for invasions by outside communities such as the so-called Indo-Aryans.
Although some scattered skeletons were discovered in the later levels, they do not represent warfare or raiding, and there is no evidence that the site came to a violent end. [Decline and Transformation]
Now the BBC has updated their page on the history of Hinduism to reflect this. So why are some people still holding onto the invasion theory? A good answer comes from Suhag A Shukla, who was the legal counsel for the Hindu American Foundation in the recent California textbook controversy. There is no evidence of any invasion or any war. Honestly, the people who have held onto the Aryan invasion theory, probably based their entire careers on that particular theory and have expounded that through their research, they have a vested interest in not seeing it disappear.['I am not for rewriting Hinduism']
Indian subcontinent is bordered by the Himalayas, this is not easy to cross particularly a few thousand years ago. The indigenous Indian people -Dravidians, were in North India as verified by the Indus valley excavations. The later invaders of Scythians, huns and Greeks mixed with the Dravidians, but there number is far less compared to the already present Dravidians. By simply looking at people of North India a person can clearly see this. Th majority of people there are not light skinned as from the caucasians. Also Ghenghis Khan has millions of relations, does this make them all Mongolian? NO!!
