Vedic Science & History: Ancient India's Contributions to the Modern World, by Swami B.B. Vishnu.

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Vedic Science & History:

Ancient India's Contributions to the Modern World

by Swami B.B. Vishnu.

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VEDIC SCIENCE & HISTORY

Swami B. B. Vishnu

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"Real Knowledge

"We suggest that a body of knowledge does exist which provides sufficient explanation of the nature and origin of the universe and the living organisms that inhabit it. We refer to the ancient Sanskrit Vedic literatures of India, an internally and externally verifiable and consistent presentation of information. Herein we find profuse descriptions of an intelligent creator and his creation.

"Perhaps the most well known of these literatures, The Bhagavad Gita explains the nature of the conscious spiritual spark, atma as an indweller in the bodies of various species and it’s journey to other bodies after the death of it’s present body according to the laws of karma. The living entity has free choice to act properly or improperly and receives the resultant good and bad reactions in terms of success and failure, happiness and distress.

"Also encoded within this vast body of literature is a description of the process of bhakti-yoga, a process for obtaining enlightenment and rising beyond the ordinary platform of eating, sleeping, mating and defending. The essence of these teachings may be found in the Bhagavad Gita.[105]

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"In ancient India, mathematics served as a bridge between understanding material reality and the spiritual conception."

"The adoption of zero and the decimal place-value system from India unbarred the gates of the mind to rapid progress in arithmetic and algebra."

"Marco Polo has written of India as, “the richest and noblest country in the world.” A significant number of famous writers and high thinkers, such as Emerson, Thoreau, Schopenhauer, and Sagan, have praised the Vedas and Vedic culture as the inspiration for many of the higher philosophical and scientific concepts the world has known. The knowledge of the Vedic literatures profoundly influenced the writings of the 19th Century authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau – so much so that they became known as ‘The American Transcendentalists.’ Even the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, a central figure in modern philosophy, suggested that, “mankind together with all science must have originated on the roof of the world (the Himalayas).”

"Voltaire, the famous French writer and philosopher, stated that, “Pythagoras went to the Ganges to learn geometry,” and professor emeritus Abraham Seidenberg, acclaimed historian of mathematics, credits the early Shulba Sutras as inspiring all mathematics of the ancient world from Babylonia to Egypt to Greece. Indeed India is credited with a great many significant additions to science, such as the Pythagorean Theorem, the decimal numbering system, the introduction of zero and the concept of infinity, to name a few of them.

"The binary number system, essential for computers, was originally used in Vedic verse metres a millennia ago. Also, in South Indian musicology we find a simple hashing technique, a precursor to modern search algorithms, such as that developed by Google.

"Noted scientist and writer Carl Sagan stated, “Vedic Cosmology is the only one in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology.” ... "

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"Michael Danino, in his excellent article Genetics and the Aryan Debate,[25][26] presents the conclusions of nine major studies done by 114 authors from 1999 to 2006, studying the mutations of genetic markers ‘haplotypes’ referring to an individual’s genetic fingerprint and the haplogroups (DNA of particular ethnic groups) to establish a ‘genetic distance’ between different populations. His conclusions state –

"None of the nine major studies quoted above lends any support to it (differences between North and South Indians or higher and lower castes within the invasionist framework), and none proposes to define a demarcation line between tribe and caste. The overall picture emerging from these studies is, first, an unequivocal rejection of a 3500 BP arrival of a ‘Caucasoid’ or Central Asian gene pool. Just as the imaginary Aryan invasion / migration left no trace in Indian literature, in the archaeological and the anthropological record, it is invisible at the genetic level…"

"In simple terms, except for Africans, all humans have ancestors in the North-West of the Indian peninsula. In particular, one migration started around 50000 BP towards the Middle East and Western Europe: indeed, nearly all Europeans — and by extension, many Americans — can trace their ancestors to only four mtDNA lines, which appeared between 10000 and 50000 years ago and originated from South Asia.[27]"

So far so good, but then author makes a horrendous mistake.

"All this suggests that (the haplogroup) M17 could have found his way initially from India or Pakistan, through Kashmir, then via Central Asia and Russia, before finally coming into Europe.[28]"

He's mentioning a so-called nation that never existed even in name, until British divided India in a bid to fracture India as per Macaulay policy, and has been ever since then a combination of two horrible things - one, a jihadist factory, and two, a military base for an expensive free use by West.

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" ... When the British indologist Sir William Jones discovered the common roots of Sanskrit and the European languages, his Eurocentric world view and religious bias would not allow him to admit that Indo-European languages originate from Sanskrit.

"It is of no surprise that early indologists and historians credited European culture to be the origin of Vedic civilisation. Yet history refuses to be kind to these scholars, as archaeological, scientific, genetic, cultural and numerous evidence from other disciplines continues to mount against their erroneous ‘Aryan Invasion Theory.’ Such scientifically verified evidence, in consistent agreement with statements in Vedic literatures, also indicates a cultural continuity in Indian civilisation, thought, philosophy, metaphysics and socio-religious traditions, stretching back from millennia to the present day.

"Even Max Muller, the principal architect of the Aryan Invasion Theory, was forced to admit that his chronology of Indian history was arbitrary and speculative at best, adding further doubt to the Aryan Invasion hypothesis. Whereas the scientific and cultural contributions of China, Greece and Babylon are famous and well documented, those of India have been greatly overlooked in spite of the now overwhelming evidence supporting the Vedic conclusions. Indeed it almost seems that some indologists and historians have deliberately neglected India’s ancient traditions."

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" ... Astronomical references to planets and constellations in Vedic literatures, calculated with modern planetarium software, indicate the development of an indigenous civilisation in India prior to 7000 BCE, in continuous existence up to the present.

"Volumes of archaeological data support the astronomical, ecological, genetic and anthropological conclusions that the highly advanced civilisation of the Aryans were originals of India largely unchanged for the last 10000 years. Innumerable descriptions of geology, agriculture, cultural/religious rituals & customs, architecture, etc. within the Vedas and Epics are in concert with present day observations and analysis of the same activities, thereby supporting the continuity of this civilisation and refuting the discredited Aryan Invasion Theory.

"Corroboration of such dating is also supported by references found in ancient historical works relating to the fluctuations of the water volumes of ancient rivers as well as by satellite remote sensing and Paleo-climatic research. Oceanographical research analyzing the microorganisms found in layers in sea beds reveal very accurate measurements of sea level fluctuations over millennia, further corroborating such findings.

"Paleo-botanic research shows the continuous cultivation of plants, herbs and trees, mentioned in the Vedas and Epics, uninterrupted for more than eight to ten thousand years. Such continuity as corroborated by so many disciplines negates the idea of an invasion of foreign influence. Anthropological research has established that DNA dating for Paleolithic continuity starts from 60000 BCE and that the genetic profile of humans across India has not changed in the last 11000 years and does not match the genetic profile of Central Asians or Europeans.

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"The Pope & Fibonacci Try to Introduce the Indian Decimal Number System into Europe

"It is astonishing how many years passed before the Indian numeral system finally gained full acceptance in the rest of the world. There are indications that it reached southern Europe perhaps as early as 500 CE, but with Europe mired in the Dark Ages, few paid any attention. The first surviving example of the Indian numerals in document form in Europe was, however, long before the time of Al-Banna in the 14th Century. The Indian numerals appear in the Codex Vigilanus copied by a monk in Spain in 976.[60]

"Significantly, the main part of Europe was not ready at that time to accept new ideas of any kind. Acceptance was slow, even as late as the 15th Century when European mathematics began it’s rapid development, which continues today.

"During this time counting tables were used by ‘bankers’ in medieval Italian cities for exchanging currencies. If they cheated their table would be broken and this banker was then know as rukta or broken (banka-rukta), an early version of the modern word ‘bankrupt.’"

Was "rukta" a word borrowed from West Asia?

"That the European monks depicted Indian numerals in a variety of orientations is clear evidence that they did not understand the usefulness of place-value number systems. Calculations in Europe were still made on calculation boards. Among the first uses of the Indian system in Europe was the introduction of Indian numerals for checker board calculations by Gerbert d’Aurillac, who became Pope Sylvester II in 999. When he encountered Indian numerals in Arabic manuscripts held in a Spanish monastery, he introduced round tokens with Indian numerals to his calculation board.

"However, this system encountered stiff resistance in part from accountants who did not want their craft rendered obsolete and to clerics who were aghast to hear that the Pope had traveled to Islamic lands to study this foreign method. Because of this Islamic connection it was widely rumored that he was a sorcerer, and that he had sold his soul to Lucifer during his travels. This accusation persisted until 1648, when papal authorities reopened Sylvester’s tomb to make sure that his body had not been infested by Satanic forces.[61]

"The early Christian world view was largely a product of Aristotelian conceptions, where the Earth was the centre of the universe, set in motion by an ‘unmoved mover,’ or God. Because there was no place for a void in this cosmology it followed that the concept of zero and everything associated with it was a godless concept. Eastern philosophies however, rooted in ideas of eternal cycles of creation and destruction, had no such qualms.

"Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci, the young son of an Italian diplomat, who is now regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, discovered the ‘Arabic numerals’ in the port of Bijaya, Algeria. The Indo-Arabic system was re-introduced to Europe by Fibonacci, in his 1202 CE book, Liber Abaci (Book of the Abacus or Book of Calculating), which was a showcase for the Indian numerals, with emphasis on it’s usage by merchants.[62]"

"Bijaya" is Bengali form of the Sanskrit word 'Vijaya'! Evidence of India's influence in West?

Influence of India to South and East, particularly Southeast, is known. Vietnam and Cambodia, as reported by Marco Polo, were three kingdoms of which at least two had Sanskrit names, Champa and Vijaya.

"Although this work persuaded many European mathematicians of the day to use this ‘new’ system, usage of the ten digit positional system remained limited for many years, in part because the scheme continued to be considered ‘diabolical,’ due to the mistaken impression that it originated in the Arab world, in spite of Fibonacci’s clear descriptions of the ‘nine Indian figures’ plus zero.[63]"

And yet they were wrongly called Arabic instead of Indian numerals! Racism?

"Decimal arithmetic began to be widely used by scientists beginning in the 1400s, and was employed, for instance, by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, but it was not universally used in European commerce until after the French Revolution in 1793.[64]

"Nicolas Copernicus, said to be the founder of modern astronomy, in his great work De Revolutionibus, published not long before his death in 1543, presented his ‘heretical’ idea that the earth rotated on it’s axis and traveled around the sun once yearly. This went against the philosophical and religious beliefs that the Catholic Church and all of Europe had held during medieval times.[65]

"Copernicus never knew the great stir his work caused, but two other renowned Italian scientists, Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno, wholeheartedly supported Copernicus’ system and suffered greatly at the hands of the Church’s inquisitors for daring to oppose the Church’s views and stultifying authority.

"Both were tortured extensively, Bruno for daring to go even beyond Copernicus to claim that space was boundless and that the sun and it’s planets were but one of any number of similar systems. Bruno, after eight years in chains, was burned at the stake—his life a testimony to the drive for knowledge and truth that marked the incredible period of the Renaissance.

"The old and frail Galileo was put in prison for the duration of his life. Nearly 400 years later the Catholic Church grudgingly admitted that Galileo was right."

But not that church was wrong, much less apology for burning Giordano Bruno at stake, never mind going as far as penance?

"The usage of this streamlined decimal number system of counting was not easily accepted in the rest of Christian dominated Europe either. Florence, Italy, banned the usage of this new number system in 1299 CE. Such attitudes forced the continued universal usage of the awkward and difficult Roman numerals."

And yet, Europe claimed racial superiority to India, so much so they invented Aryan Invasion Theory modified to Aryan Migration Theory, when they saw superiority of Sanskrit language and culture.

Was this assumption of superiority indicative if congenital idiocy, or incurably and presumptuously fraudulent character?

"However, use of the calculation board and of the abacus coexisted with the Indian number system for centuries. Because most people in medieval Europe were illiterate (in addition to superstitious) and the Indian calculation method required the writing down of numbers, the abacus remained the preferred tool in commerce and administration. Science, on the other hand, adopted the Indian place-value number system early."

And yet they accused India - fraudulently - of every fault of their own conduct and attitude.

"Despite many scholars finding calculating with Indian symbols helpful in their work, the business community continued to use their finger arithmetic throughout the 10th Century. Abu’l-Wafa, who was himself an expert in the use of Indian numerals, nevertheless wrote a text on how to use finger-reckoning arithmetic since this was the system used by the business community and teaching material aimed at these people had to be written using the appropriate system.[66]

"The parallel use of competing systems for calculation and measurement is not an unusual occurrence. The use of the Fahrenheit temperature scale by the public of the USA and the Celsius temperature scale by the scientists of the USA is another current example. Scientists like Copernicus, Brahe and Kepler understood the superiority of the Indian number system over the Roman numbers and used it for their detailed observations and calculations. Medieval publications demonstrate the use of the Indian method parallel to the use of the abacus and calculation boards during their time."

And other differences of measures such as pounds and gallons vs liter and kilo, miles vs km, and so on, are still prevalent.

"When James Cook in 1776 planned the voyage that brought him to Australia, the financial commitment was comparable to the commitment made by the USA and the USSR to get a man to the moon. Yet the Colonial Office prepared his budget with tokens on a checker board."

Australia and India distracted UK enough to allow US gain independence!

"The use of the abacus or calculation board for administrative purposes continued in Europe until 1791, when the French National Assembly, which was set up through the French Revolution two years earlier, adopted the Indian calculation method for France and banned the use of the abacus from schools and government offices. Government offices in England continued to calculate taxes on calculation boards for another decade.

"The Catholic Church had always regarded charging interest on loans as sinful but with the Reformation in the late Middle Ages, the Church became business friendly, dropping it’s rejection of capitalism. With this new interest in capitalism and the necessity of calculating interest and compound interest, the old Roman numeral system failed badly and the new system was finally accepted. This also allowed European ships to sail afield once they were able to calculate their position consistently and easily."

That's the key reformation? Not repentance about murders committed by church?

"Finally, the Copernican revolution shook European mathematics free from the shackles of Aristotelian cosmology. René Descartes in the 17th Century invented his Cartesian coordinate system of positive and negative numbers with zero at it’s centre. This combined algebra and geometry and led the way to calculus and a complete acceptance of the decimal number system in the western world.[67]

"India pioneered almost every field of mathematics, from the numeral system and arithmetical principles of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, to the invention of zero and the notion of infinity, to the power and place value and decimal systems, geometry and many of the theorems traditionally attributed and named after the Greeks or other Europeans.

"Algebra, trigonometry and even significant parts of calculus, were all developed by Indians to a significant degree of finesse, long before any country or individual that the Europeans have credited."

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"Vast amounts of data from archaeological excavations prove the indigenous origins and development of civilisation within India since 7000 BCE."

Try squaring that number.

For either one concedes, that India recorded the rising of Himalayan ranges from an ocean that vanished to the North between India and Asia, as an eyewitness account - or one concedes an immense yogic power to the sages that recorded it using yogic vision to know such facts!

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"In order to remain open-minded and ready to accept science’s multifarious discoveries, it is sometimes necessary to consider seemingly impossible or unlikely prospects. A child’s imagination is wondrous because a child is allowed to imagine without boundaries – yet science refuses to allow adults to do so. In order to expand our horizons and achieve breakthroughs in research it is necessary to allow our imagination to function without restriction."

There's no restriction imposed on mental processes of scientists, but presentations of what's considered proof has to be a series of logical steps, each progressing from previous to next in an ironclad chain of reason.

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"When was the idea of space travel or even flight first conceived? Many would say it began with the Wright brothers or with Leonardo Da Vinci, who conceived and designed many flying contraptions, even though he did not build them. However, if we look deeply into this subject we find that the earliest reference is in the Vedas, India’s ancient books of wisdom. Here, vimanas, or flying machines are mentioned quite regularly."

Do the Vedas give idea of flight? Ramayana certainly presents flight as fait accompli, and so perhaps do Vedas.

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"According to reliable mainstream sources, many critical mathematical and scientific concepts are attributed to the ancient Vedas and are often found within their extensive texts. Such concepts as zero, infinity, the Pythagorean Theorem, the decimal system, the binary number system and even evolution have their origins in ancient Vedic knowledge."

Isn't Dashavataara evolution?

"Even the language of the Vedas, Sanskrit, is highly evolved. A NASA scientist, Rick Briggs, has written that the language of the Vedas, Sanskrit, is the most perfect language for scientific expression because of it’s conciseness and un-ambiguity.[1] Its eloquence is well known, yet Sanskrit is little appreciated in modern times."

Blame it on Macaulay policy, adapted now by colonial slave mindset appeasing Abrahamic-II, Abrahamic-III and Abrahamic-IV who have, in tandem with West, taken it up.

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"Most religions have their sacred scriptures that are considered infallible by their believers and are considered by them as representing a divine revelation of the truth. A close look at any one of these scriptures and we see many stories, events, creatures etc., which are truly unbelievable. Yet, the faithful accept them at face value as divine and factual. Followers of Abrahamic religions do not reject their faith because of the impossibility of Moses parting the Red Sea, Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt, Jesus walking on water nor Mohammed descending to heaven on a winged horse etc."

One, he doesn't dare touch virgin birth doctrine, much less the virgo intacta condition of the newly delivered mother, after a natural childbirth as asserted by church that it was examined and found so by shepherdesses around.

Two, at the end of the paragraph he mentions one of the things admitted - publicly - as fact by those of that faith, for mentioning which, now, a young woman in India is threatened every day by that community, with murder and far worse.

This, on top of losing her position and identity; there's public clamour by them, every day, about why the Indian government isn't punishing her, driving the point home that this minority won't stop short of reducing India to a copy of Afghanistan, if not to a complete cemetery, with only one community left alive.

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"Yet, a favorite conversion technique in India by foreign religious orders is to point out some apparently unrealistic aspects of the Hindu belief system, while ignoring so many equally unbelievable stories from their own scriptures, compounded by their fabricated stories in their efforts to insert their religion back into earlier Indian times."

This includes Pakistan and Co claiming, on public discussions on television, that India "was naked" - i.e., had no couture, no cuisine, no culture, no literature and no architecture, and of vourse, no buildings, before Islamic invasions; while Abrahamic-II has missionaries claim that Adam and Eve are mentioned in India's ancient literature and that Nalasetu, built for Rama, was the bridge used by Adam and Eve who walked over from Sri Lanka, which was the biblical Eden, when thrown out by their God, and the bridge was immediately lost.

Both lie.

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"Pure science, as accepted by the academic community, generally neglects and is suspicious of such aspects of reality as consciousness, the spiritual spark, atma and other spiritual considerations. Unfortunately we can never hope to have a complete or perfect picture without considering all possible realities. Herein lies an inherent defect in the science of today’s world – the same science, which is regarded as factual and complete by the majority of society."

Factual, certainly, but complete, no, few would make so silly an assertion.

Barring perhaps Sheldon Cooper, that is!

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"Innumerable archaeological findings and their analysis have recently brought the Aryan Invasion Theory into serious question. This theory is still taught as fact in many educational systems, despite much contrary evidence."

US systematically does worse, teaching school children things calculated to inculcate horror or disdain about India, for no other reason than Abrahamic prejudices, and shaming Hindu Indian students.

They are taught to identify Hinduism with worship of cows, while they are never taught to recognise Yoga as heritage of India. The latter is in fact denied strenuously, except when a church objects teaching thereof.

For those not enslaved to a mindset conceding superior character to every whim of those of pale physical hues, the former is an unreasonable prejudice by abrahmic creeds, not an embarrassment for India. Gratitude to a sustaining and otherwise vital species isn't, besides, unknown in West, especially US, where horse thieves were executed by law until twentieth century, and anyone eating a dog or a cat would certainly be sent to a mental hospital if not jail.

So valuing cattle for a tropical agrarian economy being merely different in another species being vital than the horse and dog that's important to Nordic hunting society, is perhaps too taxing for brains too busy evaluating their blond status.

What can one expect from a society where a vital story of early beginnings is that of an Abel murdered by a Cain? That society is descendents of Cain, and even their God values flesh-consuming Abel's gifts over a farmer's produce, until the latter commits murder. Then the same God protects the murderer, after forgiving him!

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"A vast number of statements and materials presented in the ancient Vedic literatures can be shown to agree with modern scientific findings and they also reveal a highly developed scientific content in these literatures. The great cultural wealth of this knowledge is highly relevant in the modern world.

"Techniques used to show this agreement include:

"• Marine archaeology of underwater sites (such as Dvaraka)

"• Satellite imagery of the Indus-Sarasvata River system

"• Carbon and thermoluminiscence dating of archaeological artifacts

"• Scientific verification of scriptural statements

"• Linguistic analysis of scripts found on archaeological artifacts

"• A study of cultural continuity in all these categories"

"Early indologists wished to control & convert the followers of Vedic Culture, therefore they widely propagated that the Vedas were simply mythology.

"Max Muller, perhaps the most well known early sanskritist and indologist, although later in life he glorified the Vedas, initially wrote that, “the Vedas were worse than savage” and “India must be conquered again by education... it’s religion is doomed.”

"Thomas Macaulay, who introduced English education into India, wanted to make the residents into a race that was:

"Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect.

"However, the famed German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer stated that the Sanskrit understanding of these indologists was like that of young schoolboys.

"These early indologists:

"• Devised the Aryan Invasion Theory, denying India’s Vedic past.

"• They taught that the English educational system is superior.

"• They intentionally misinterpreted Sanskrit texts to make the Vedas look primitive.

"• They systematically tried to make Indians ashamed of their own culture.

"• Thus the actions of these indologists seems to indicate that they were motivated by a racial bias."

While everything else author says above is true, one suspects that the third point is perhaps stretched: who says they understood Vedas, which are, at best, highly non trivial, not exactly for hoi polloi or haute monde?

Much more likely scenario is that, they underestimated Vedas as they did everything of India, especially whatever was indigenous and not imported Abrahamic, due to racism, while overestimating their own brains by miles vertically and never questioning if they understood rightly - all because of, what, looking like a New York fashionable medium rare, or a rare?

What's far worse, however, are the false twists given to Indian literature when taught to Indian children in US, vilifying good and painting villains as innocent.

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"The Aryan Invasion Theory raises an interesting dilemma called Frawley’s Paradox: On the one hand we have the vast Vedic literature without any archaeological finds associated with them and on the other hand, we have more than 2500 archaeological sites from the Indus-Sarasvata civilisation without any literature associated with them.

"A preponderance of contemporary evidence now seems to indicate that these are one and the same cultures. This certainly eliminates this paradox and makes perfect sense, to an unbiased researcher."

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"Several independent studies of the drying up of the Sarasvati River bed, all indicate the same time period of 1900 BCE.

"The significance of establishing this date for the drying up of the Sarasvati River is that it pushes the date for the composition of the Rig Veda back to approximately 3000 BCE, as enunciated by the Vedic tradition itself."

Fact is Vedas predate Ramayana by millennia which in turn predates Mahabharata, and the last has been dated to 4,5,00-6,000 BCE as the latest possible date, possibly modulo n×26,000 years back for a positive value of n; this was via astronomical observations from the texts.

Similarly Ramayana has been now dated back to 14,500-11,000 BCE, again modulo m×26,000 years back for a positive value of m, and with the proviso thst Ramayana must predate Mahabharata, but is at most a million years old, not more, due to geological factors mentioned therein.

So Vedas are somewhere between 16,000 BCE at latest, to possibly over a million years old.

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"Satellite Imagery of the Dried Up Sarasvati River Basin

"Using modern scientific methods, such as satellite imagery and dating techniques, it can be shown that the ancient statements of the Vedas are factual, not mythical as erroneously propagated. High resolution satellite images have verified descriptions in The Rig Veda of the descent of the ancient Sarasvati River from it’s source in the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea."

"The mighty Sarasvati River and it’s civilisation are referred to in the Rig Veda more than fifty times, proving that the drying up of the Sarasvati River was subsequent to the origin of the Rig Veda, pushing this date of origin back into antiquity, casting further doubt on the imaginary date for the so-called Aryan Invasion."

Author gives here a truly impressive photograph.

"A Satellite image of western India and Pakistan clearly shows the Indus-Sarasvata river system extending from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. The Indus River is on the left, while the Sarasvati River basin is to its right. Several thousand archeological sites or previous settlements have been found along the banks of the now dry Sarasvati River Valley."

This is a river system evident as something other than that of today, a tremendous huge Y shape from Himalayan ranges to South West Ocean below Gujarat, with Sindhu river obviously a very thin, westernmost tributary amongst others of a truly mighty river that flies no more. The Ganga-Yamuna system of today, known for well over several millennia - since before Ramayana, in fact - don't show in this photograph at all.

Possibly the bringing down of Ganga, achieved by Bhagieratha, was around the time of, or after, vanishing and going underground of the mighty Sarasvati or Saraswati.

But Mahabharata does mention both Ganga and Sarasvati or Saraswati, so the latter must have taken several millennia in process of her vanishing and going underground.

"The drying up of the Sarasvati River around 1900 BCE is confirmed archaeologically. Following major tectonic movements or plate shifts in the Earth’s crust, the primary cause of this drying appears to be due to the capture of the Sarasvati River’s main tributaries, the Sutlej and the Dhrishadvati, by other rivers.

"Although early studies, based on limited archaeological evidence produced contradictory conclusions, recent independent studies, such as that of archaeologist James Shaffer in 1993, showed no evidence of a foreign invasion in the Indus Sarasvata civilisation and that a cultural continuity could be traced back for millennia.

"In other words, Archaeology does not support the Aryan Invasion Theory."

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"Evidence for the Ancient Port City of Dvaraka

"Marine archaeology has also been utilised in India off the coast of the ancient port city of Dvaraka in Gujarat, uncovering further evidence in support of statements in the Vedic scriptures. An entire submerged city at Dvaraka, the ancient port city of Lord Krishna with its massive fort walls, piers, wharfs and jetty has been found in the ocean, similar to that described in the Mahabharata and other Vedic literatures."

"Dr. S. R. Rao, formerly of the Archaeological Survey of India, has pioneered marine archaeology in India. Marine archaeological findings seem to corroborate descriptions in the Mahabharata of Dvaraka as a large, well-fortified and prosperous port city, which was built on land reclaimed from the sea, and later taken back by the sea. This lowering and raising of the sea level during these same time periods of the 15th and 16th Centuries BCE is also documented in historical records of the country of Bahrain."

But dating of Mahabharata, to circa 4,5,00-6,000 BCE at the very latest, is irrefutable due to the character of the evidence matching astronomical data available now with observations mentioned in the epic. So the ocean drowning Dwaarakaa could possibly have happened more than once, after it was reconstructed.

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"Renowned Thinkers Who Appreciated the Vedic Literatures

"Although early indologists, in their missionary zeal, widely vilified the Vedas as primitive mythology, many of the worlds greatest thinkers admired the Vedas as great repositories of advanced knowledge and high thinking.

"Arthur Schopenhauer, the famed German philosopher and writer, wrote that, “I ...encounter (in the Vedas) deep, original, lofty thoughts... suffused with a high and holy seriousness.”

"The well-known early American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, read the Vedas daily. Emerson wrote, “I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita.”

"Henry David Thoreau said, “In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous philosophy of the Bhagavat-Gita... in comparison with which... our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial.”

"So great were Emerson and Thoreau’s appreciation of Vedantic literatures that they became known as the American Transcendentalists. Their writings contain many thoughts from Vedic Philosophy.

"Other famous personalities who spoke of the greatness of the Vedas were: Alfred North Whitehead (British mathematician, logician and philosopher), who stated that, “Vedanta is the most impressive metaphysics the human mind has conceived.”

"Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the principle developer of the atomic bomb, stated that, “The Vedas are the greatest privilege of this century.” During the explosion of the first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer quoted several Bhagavad Gita verses from the 11th chapter, such as, “Death I am, cause of destruction of the worlds...”

"When Oppenheimer was asked if this is the first nuclear explosion, he significantly replied, “Yes, in modern times,” implying that ancient nuclear explosions may have previously occurred. This is significant because ancient weapons, much like modern nuclear weapons, are described many places in the Vedic literatures.

"Lin Yutang, Chinese scholar and author, wrote that, “India was China’s teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics... “ and so forth.

"Francois Voltaire stated, “... everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges.”

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"The Iron Pillar of Delhi

"The Vedic literatures contain descriptions of advanced scientific techniques, sometimes even more sophisticated than those used in our modern technological world.

"Modern metallurgists have not been able to produce iron of comparable quality to the 22 foot high Iron Pillar of Delhi, which is the largest hand forged block of iron from antiquity.

"This pillar stands as mute testimony to the highly advanced scientific knowledge of metallurgy that was known in ancient India. Cast in approximately the 3rd Century BCE, the six and a half ton pillar, over two millennia has resisted all rust and even a direct hit by the artillery of the invading army of Nadir Shah during his sacking of Delhi in 1737.

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"The Heliodorus Column and Cultural Links to India

"An example of India’s cultural exchanges with European countries is found in the inscriptions on the Heliodorus Column, erected in 113 BCE by Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador to India, and convert to Vaisnavism, as well as the 2nd Century BCE coins of Agathocles, showing images of Krishna and Balaram. These artifacts also stand testimony that Sanatan Dharma predates Christianity.

"The Heliodorus stone pillar confirms the link between India and other ancient civilisations such as Greece and shows that there was a continuous exchange of culture, philosophy and scientific knowledge between India & other countries. Indeed the Greeks learned many wonderful things from India.

................................................................................................

"Vedic Cosmology

"Vedic Cosmology is yet another ancient Vedic science which can be confirmed by modern scientific findings and this is acknowledged by well known scientists and authors, such as Carl Sagan and Count Maurice Maeterlinck, who recognised that the cosmology of the Vedas closely parallels recent scientific observations and calculations.

"Carl Sagan stated, “Vedic Cosmology is the only one in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology.”

"Nobel laureate Count Maurice Maeterlinck wrote of “a Cosmogony which no European conception has ever surpassed.”

"French astronomer Jean-Claude Bailly corroborated the antiquity and accuracy of the Vedic astronomical measurements as, “more ancient than those of the Greeks or Egyptians.” And that, “the movements of the stars calculated 4500 years ago, does not differ by a minute from the tables of today.”

"The ninety foot tall astronomical instrument known as Samrat Yantra, built by the learned King Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur, measures time to within two seconds per day.

"Cosmology and other scientific accomplishments of ancient India spread to other countries along with mercantile and cultural exchanges. There are almost one hundred references in the Rig Veda alone to the ocean and maritime activity. This is confirmed by Indian historian R. C. Majumdar, who stated that the people of the Indus-Sarasvata Civilisation engaged in trade with Sooma and centres of culture in western Asia and Crete.

................................................................................................

"Vedic Mathematics

"Voltaire, the famous French writer and philosopher, stated that, “Pythagoras went to the Ganges to learn geometry.” Professor Emeritus Abraham Seidenberg, who taught at Berkeley for forty-two years, credits the Shulba Sutras as inspiring all mathematics of the ancient world from Babylonia to Egypt to Greece.

"As Voltaire & Seidenberg have stated, many highly significant mathematical concepts have come from the Vedic culture, such as:

"• The theorem bearing the name of the Greek mathematician Pythagorus is found in the Shatapatha Brahmana as well as the Shulba Sutra, the Indian mathematical treatise, written centuries before Pythagorus was born.

"• The Decimal system, based on powers of ten, where the remainder is carried over to the next column, is first mentioned in the Taittiriya Samhita of the Black Yajurveda.

"• The Introduction of zero as both a numerical value and a place marker.

"• The Concept of infinity.

"• The Binary number system, essential for computers, was used in Vedic verse metres.

"• A simple hashing technique, a precursor to that used by modern search algorithms, such as that of Google, was used in South Indian musicology. From the name of a raga one can determine the notes of the raga from this Kathapayadi system."

"Black Yajurveda"????

................................................................................................

"Vedic Sound and Mantras

" ... Perhaps we all have seen a high-pitched frequency shatter an ordinary drinking glass. Such a demonstration shows that loud sounds can produce substantial reactions.

"It is commonly believed that mantras can carry hidden power which can in turn produce certain effects. The ancient Vedic literatures are full of descriptions of weapons being called by mantra. For example, many weapons were invoked by mantra during the epic Kuruksetra War, wherein the Bhagavad Gita itself was spoken."

" ... mantras carry hidden spiritual power, which can produce significant benefits when chanted properly. Indeed, the Vedas themselves are sound vibrations in literary form and carry a profound message. Spiritual disciplines recommend meditational practices such as silent meditation, silent recitation of mantras and also the verbal repetition of specific mantras out loud."

"Results showed that regular chanting of the Maha Mantra reduces stress and depression and helps reduce bad habits & addictions. These results formed a PhD Thesis at Florida State University. Tests performed with similar mantras have produced corresponding results."

................................................................................................

"State of the art scientific evidence utilising modern widely accepted methodologies yields overwhelming historical proof of Vedic narrations as well as accurate dating of these vast literatures. Our thesis is that the most voluminous body of literature in existence, the ancient Vedic literatures of India, along with their vast and deep culture, religion and traditions are now proven to be factual accounts, in as far as they have been investigated, which is ongoing and to date conclusive."

................................................................................................

"India’s ‘History’

"Much of India’s history has been written by outsiders (principally British colonialists) with vested economic and religious interests in distorting the truth based on insubstantial evidence deducted through the crude and unscientific techniques available in their time. Since then, the politics of power and control have stifled reform — leaving an incorrect and outdated model of Indian history being taught in schoolrooms around the world, even in spite of the plethora of formidable evidence to the contrary.

"Professor Richard Villems of the Estonian Biocentre writes,

"According to one of the most widely-used history books on India, The Wonder that was India,[3] by A.L. Basham, the invading Aryans were, ‘semi-nomadic barbarians, tall, who tamed the horse, were pastoral, and migrated in bands eastwards, conquering local populations and intermarrying with them to form a ruling class. They brought with them their patrilineal family system, their worship of the sky gods….’ Just about every aspect of modern Hinduism is attributed either directly to these invaders, or as a result of their interaction with the conquered, likely Dravidian-speaking people.[4]

"Basham’s book, although hopelessly outdated and incorrect in many aspects, is still used as a textbook in Indian schools. Newer evidence obtained with new technologies has greatly changed the conclusions obtained from the original evidence.

................................................................................................

"Early Unscientific Findings

"The 19th Century brought the introduction of anthropology along with a number of rather unscientific techniques such as anthropometry, craniometry or phrenology based on racial considerations prevalent in those times. For example Risley, a colonial government official in the late 18th Century, on the basis of a nasal index defined 2378 castes from 43 races, heavily influencing Indian anthropology. Skeletons found in Mohenjo-daro in the 1930s by B. S. Guna detailed finding many fictitious ‘non-Aryan’ races still found in Indian textbooks. It wasn’t until after World War II that these misconceived racial considerations collapsed in light of much more reliable scientific techniques.[5]

"Unfortunately, this so-called history still bears remnants of the influence of British imperialistic dominion over India as well as that of Christian and Islamic influences, none of which are endemic to India. The British subjugation and exploitation of India was facilitated by implementing various ploys, such as,

"• Infiltrating and taking over the economy of India by the British East India Company.

"• Inventing the Aryan Invasion Theory (i.e. the Vedic culture, people and literature came from outside India artificially adding credibility to foreign control by the British).

"• Discrediting the vast wealth of information and history found in the Vedic literatures as mythology and of foreign origin (stealing the Indian pride in their culture).

"• Introducing the Christian educational system as superior while simultaneously propagating an attitude of inferiority amongst the Indian population.

"Consider then, if Indians are really an inferior race as the British so eagerly claimed, then why are Indians the top students at so many western Engineering schools? Why do they dominate a substantial portion of Silicon Valley and why is Bangalore the IT capital of the world? How is it that the contributions of India’s ancient Vedic civilisation to the modern world in the fields of mathematics, cosmology, medicine and other sciences is much greater and superior to any other countries’ contributions yet not given credit? ... Past attempts within India to right these wrongs have been politicly labeled as Hindu distortions. However, scholars of repute are aware of the facts and are not so easily swayed by such fallacious claims. India will be judged by how it responds to this. It is time to stand up for the truth.

"A few of the many significant contributions of the Vedic system to humanity are — the decimal and binary number systems, the concept of zero and infinity, the Pythagorean theorem, and a cosmology lauded by Carl Sagan as being in agreement with modern accepted reality, the precise Sanskrit language, lauded by a NASA scientist as the best media for artificial intelligence, what to speak of cultural contributions such as Indian dance, music, medicine, cuisine, architecture, yoga, mathematics, physics, metallurgy, a highly sophisticated philosophy interlinked with its advanced culture and a host of further significant additions.

................................................................................................

"The Vedas Maligned

"Abraham Seidenberg, a mathematics historian, credits the Vedas as, “inspiring all the mathematics of the ancient world.” Renowned thinkers, writers and scientists such as Emerson, Thoreau, Voltaire, Schopenhauer, Whitehead and even the renowned scientists Einstein, Heisenberg, and Neils Bohr revered the Vedas as great sources of vastly superior wisdom and knowledge and this profound influence on them is found in their writings.

" ... The British refused to believe the fantastic descriptions found in the Vedic Literatures of India — these ancient scriptures describing in great detail India’s history and beliefs as well as the codes for its religion. The Vedas provide many dates from antiquity which occur well before the date of Creation believed by the Christian tradition as 23rd October 4004 BCE.

"In these Colonialist’s minds (who were at the time outsiders invasive to India, i.e., foreigners), anything occurring before their supposed date of Creation of 4004 BCE must be mythology. This, along with the apparently unbelievable nature of many Vedic narrations gave early indologists and other foreigners sufficient cause to write off the vast Vedic literatures as simply mythology — phantasmagoria. A closer look reveals that even the Christians’ own Bible contains even more fantastic and unbelievable stories, what to speak of the scriptures of other religious belief systems or even cultural traditions such as the Koran, the Torah and the Dharmapada as well as historical works.

"The early British indologist Sir Thomas Jones, in his studies of Sanskrit, found that the Latin based languages of Europe had common roots with the Sanskrit language of the Vedic literatures. Although Jones was enthralled by the Vedas, his strong religious beliefs along with the Eurocentric mentality of superiority felt by Jones and his comrades, dictated that this was proof that the Vedic culture had come into India from Europe or Asia. It certainly wouldn’t do for their culture to have originated in India — that was simply unacceptable to their pride.

................................................................................................

"The Aryan Invasion Theory

"This was one of the principle building blocks for the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), with its supposition that the Proto-European-Sanskrit language at the common root of Sanskrit and such Latin-based European languages as German, Greek and English originated somewhere outside of India. It was originally proposed that the origin of Sanskrit and the culture it is deeply embedded within was most probably in middle Europe.

"Max Muller’s arbitrary dating of the origin of the Vedas, based in large part on these now disproven linguistic considerations, as only as far back as 1500 BCE and the Rig Veda’s origin as 1200 BCE was another cornerstone of the AIT. Later Muller vehemently retracted his original dating as arbitrary and not factual. No substantial evidence whatsoever, other than some linguistic guesswork, religious hearsay, and insubstantial crude analysis of data, has ever been found to support the so called invasion in 1500 BCE of Aryans from Central Asia or Europe.

"In the Indian context, the work of U.S anthropologists Kenneth Kennedy, John Lukacs and Brian Hemphill in the 1990s is significant.[6] Their chief conclusion regarding the Aryan controversy, is that there is no trace of ‘demographic disruption’ in the North-West of the subcontinent between 4500 and 800 BCE; this negates the possibility of any massive intrusion, by so-called Indo-Aryans or other populations, during that period.

"Die-hard proponents of such an invasion / migration have therefore been compelled to downscale it to a ‘trickle-in’ infiltration,[7] limited enough to have left no physical trace, although they are at pains to explain how a ‘trickle’ was able to radically alter India’s linguistic and cultural landscape when much more massive invasions of the historical period failed to do so.[8]"

"The AIT also raises an interesting paradox. If the Vedas are not of indigenous origin then the vast and highly developed Harappan civilisation dated in its maturity to the 3rd millennium BCE and uncovered in thousands of archaeological sites, along with proof of their knowledge of writing, has no literature and the voluminous Vedic literatures have an as yet undiscovered origin. Then there is no evidence of a civilisation from which these highly evolved epics have sprung. Dismissing the now soundly defeated AIT, it makes perfect sense to credit India’s indigenous civilisation with the Vedas and is totally in concert with all the evidence from a vast number of unrelated disciplines such as archaeology, genetics, astronomy etc, many of which are presented in brief herein.

................................................................................................

"The Borrowing Theory

"A somewhat similar theory called the ‘Borrowing Theory’ was devised by Christians early on to show the many similarities between Christianity and the Vedic system of religion — their well supported conclusion was that Hinduism had borrowed much of its religion from Christianity."

Another ridiculous edifice built on a foundation of sheer nothing but racism!

Facts are other way around, abrahmic creeds in general having borrowed a great deal, from baby Moses to much of wedding vows in church.

"Unfortunately for these proponents, precise dating of archaeological discoveries and other evidence like Megasthenes 3rd Century BCE work Indica, the Mora Well and Ghosundi inscriptions of the 1st and 2nd Centuries BCE, the Heliodorus Column of 113 BCE and the 2nd Century BCE Krishna and Balaram Coins of Agathocles conclusively prove that the Vedic system long predates Christianity. More recent archaeological finds of even greater antiquity as well as scientific analysis of similar evidence presented herein, pushes the Vedic civilisation’s origin even further back many more millennia — further supporting this conclusion.

"With the emergence of this substantial evidence, The Borrowing Theory was conveniently forgotten by its formerly ardent fans. The obvious flip side of the borrowing argument is that its solid evidence proves that a significant portion of Christianity must have been borrowed from the Vedic system — a worthy quest to document further.

................................................................................................

"Multidisciplinary Corroboration of Evidence

"Astronomical references to particular positions of constellations and stars in numerous Vedic literatures have been entered into planetary computer software and the dates calculated indicate the development of an indigenous civilisation in India from dates prior to 7000 BCE. Such references from the Rig Veda are found for dates from 7000 BCE to 4000 BCE. These dates, as calculated by modern accurate astronomical software, yield precise dates which match sequentially with their Vedic references."

Since Mahabharata has been dated - via astronomical observations from the texts as no later than 4,5,00-6,000 BCE, and Ramayana, similarly, as possibly at the latest at 11,000-14,500 BCE, Vedas must necessarily be far older, of course.

"Ecological references in other ancient reference books mention the melting of glaciers and fluctuations of river volumes which match quite well with these astronomical references from the Vedas. Newer research on paleo-climatic changes are also in agreement with these findings.[9]

"It is well known among geologists that the majestic Himalayas stand upon the original site of the Tethys Sea and it is of utmost concern how we humans are affecting the climate and bringing about sea level changes. It stands to reason that a study of the ocean — oceanography, and its changes over time can shed some light on scientific findings from other disciplines, such as geology, astronomy, ecology, genetics and anthropology."

This is an unusual, but still only fleeting, reference to India having known about the Himalayan ranges rising from the ocean that vanished to the North between India and Asia.

................................................................................................

"Oceanography

"When archaeology is combined with oceanography in the study of tiny micro-organisms called Foraminifera (micro-fossils) in marine sediments it is possible to chart past sea level fluctuations over many millennia.

"These calculations of water level fluctuations of the ocean have revealed the existence of numerous coastal archaeological sites, such as Dvaraka, Dholavira, Lothal, Gulf of Khambhat and Prabhas Patan, some existing from 7500 BCE, which are now either landlocked inland or submerged.[10] These findings can be correlated with other scientific evidence to calculate and corroborate the dating of ancient events along with their references in the Vedas.

"For example, such an approach settled the long standing controversy regarding the site at Lothal as to whether it was a water tank or dockyard. Although situated 12 kilometres from the present day ocean and two metres above sea level, it is now accepted as the world’s first ever discovered dockyard. This was determined by the finding of well preserved micro-organisms Foraminifera within this dockyard — only found within salty water. Additionally, satellite remote sensing revealed a channel to the ocean for times when the sea level lowered.

"Similarly, an ancient city submerged thirty to forty metres in the Gulf of Khambhat, between 20 and 40 kilometres west of Hazira near Surat, Gujarat was found and dated as the world’s oldest city at 7500 BCE.[11]"

That'd be possibly Dwaarakaa.

................................................................................................

"Archaeology

"Over 2500 archaeological sites have been found in northern India, two thirds of which are along the banks of the grand Sarasvati River basin. These numerous remnants of the developing Indian civilisation, dated by radiocarbon (developed by W. F. Libby in the 1950s) and the utilisation of more recent scientific methodologies, show an indigenous origin and development of this civilisation since 7000 BCE. Some new techniques recently developed for dating archaeological remains include Thermo Luminescence, Optically Stimulated Luminescence and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry. Corroboration of the dating of these archaeological findings with evidence from other methodologies (genetics in particular) discussed within this article show consistency within the development of the indigenous culture of India.[12][13]

"The important archaeological site at Mehrgahr has revealed seven levels of civilisation of continuous occupation and cultural development from the 7th millennium BCE, showing a continuity of civilisation from the 7th to 2nd millennium BCE — evidence unmatched elsewhere in the world.[14]

"Plants, trees and herbs mentioned in the Vedas and Epics have been shown by extensive paleo-botanical and archeo-botanical research to have existed in India continuously for more than 8000 years, adding further credibility to the continuity of the civilisation of the indigenous inhabitants of India.[15]

"Well documented archaeological finds in the plains of the Indus-Sarasvati River valley reveal a highly developed civilisation with planned cities, containing impressive road systems of baked bricks, well-planned public and private drainage systems, public buildings like the well known Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro as well as granaries and a precise system of weighing. Numerous steatite seals from such sites as Dholavira as well as Harappan and numerous other archaeological sites reveal a uniform script including many Vedic symbols.[16][17]"

Researchers ought to give a little more consideration to India's concern and strict rules regarding hygiene; the water storage was probably not for direct bathing or swimming as much as sourcing for all purposes for household, and the steps reaching down the means of cleaning it when empty.

"The Rig Veda describes an advanced urban and maritime civilisation entailing many varieties of ships and 75 different types of houses. This civilisation’s advanced knowledge of mathematics and astronomy later led to, “the establishment of Takshila University in 700 BCE boasting over ten thousand students from all over the world who studied more than 60 subjects. Similarly, Nalanda University was in existence in 3rd Century BCE and contained over 90 lakh books.”[18] Abundant accounts of trade with India, known for its wealth of silks, spices, diamonds and gold, exist in many writings, such as those of Marco Polo.[19][20]

................................................................................................

"Linguistics

"Although linguistic guesswork originally played an important part in the Aryan Invasion Theory,[21] many scholars’ dogged refusal to admit its less than accurate results has helped perpetuate the AIT. Professor Richard Villems of the Estonian Biocentre in Estonia has more accurately replied regarding the use of linguistics, specifically the common belief that the presence of languages derived from Indo-European, such as Sanskrit and Hindi, in the north, and the Dravidic languages of the south indicate a racial divide:

"“There is only a small difference between the pools of maternal lineages between Indians,” replied Dr. Villems, “whether they speak Indo-European or Dravidic languages. Also, the maternal genetic lineages of the Indian tribal populations are the same as the rest of the population.”[22]"

There's one obvious explanation staring everyone in face, not seen only due to racism and colonial slave mindset.

East coast of South India has remains of ancient Roman settlements, obviously trading posts. Ships must have plied across oceans seeking to trade, and brought not only Roman traders but African slaves and Jewish traders as well. Discovery of a land where there was no slavery must have resulted in Roman's setting the slaves free instead of being required to feed them until taking them back. Tamil population shows traces of features of Roman, Jewish and African DNA, not always very separated.

In addition, independent migration of Africans plying across oceans, or possibly via the now submerged continent (Kumarikhanda?), and other islands, explains the continuum from Africa to Australia and Fiji, including Andaman and Nicobar, of populations distinct from general population of neighborhood in China or India.

And this would also explain the unusual fact of every other script in India not brought by abrahmic invaders conforming to Devanagarie, except that of Tamil, which has the unusual combination of a seeming similarity with Devanagarie in looks alone but a Roman logic base, while other scripts of India are, when not Devanagarie, duplicates of Devanagarie in every way except looks.

"Professor Villems further states that, “The problem with historic linguistics is that their time horizon is at best 8000 years maximum, because their methods don’t yield positive information below this time depth.”"

Whereas if they looked without European blinkers, India's literatures being far older record of history is self evident.

................................................................................................

"Genetics

"In the field of anthropology, recent human Genome studies of DNA in all parts of the Indian subcontinent, whether it be North, South, East or West, prove common, continuous and indigenous inhabitants. “DNA dating for Paleolithic continuity starts from 60000 BCE. These studies reflect in situ development signatures for the Indian population as well as founder nodes or roots of Eurasian lineages within native Indians.”[23]

"This highly reliable genetic evidence proves that the Aryan Invasion Theory happened the other way round — if at all. That is, some small cultural dispersion occurred from India outwards, NOT that some superior (foreign) Aryan race invaded nor even migrated INTO India as postulated by some of the dying old guard hanging on to the AIT.[24]"

This is seen even in Ramayana when Bharata, with his two sons, went to rule Gaandhaara (then name for Afghanistan), after Rama returning from Lanka to Ayodhya.

"Additionally, this genetic evidence proves that both the Northern Indians and the Dravidians of South India have common origins, common ancestors and are not so different. The so-called division of Northern and Southern Indians is an artificial edifice designed as part of the strategy for dominion over the original Indian inhabitants."

Dravida never had any connotation of "non-Arya". Arya is a cultural term, comparable to "noble", while Dravida us geographical, describing a resident of the peninsular South India surrounded by oceans. Drava literally translates to "fluid".

Shankaracharya refers to himself as "Dravida", but was the greatest reviver of Vedic Culture, post Buddhism.

So far so good, but then author makes a horrendous mistake.

"All this suggests that (the haplogroup) M17 could have found his way initially from India or Pakistan, through Kashmir, then via Central Asia and Russia, before finally coming into Europe.[28]"

"We will not call it, of course, an ‘Indian invasion’ of Europe; in simple terms, India acted “as an incubator of early genetic differentiation of modern humans moving out of Africa.[29]

"This is supported by the early 1990’s work of U.S anthropologists Kenneth Kennedy, John Lukacs and Brian Hemphill.[30]

"It is, however, appropriate to conclude from this (DNA) evidence that the maternal lineages of the present-day Indian populations are largely autochthonous, that is, unique to India, and very, very old. Indians are readily distinguished from Europeans, Near-Middle East populations and those living north or east of India.

"“There are signs,” he wrote, “of later admixtures, particularly along the border regions, but this has had only a limited impact.”

"Anthropological research reports have established that DNA dating for Paleolithic continuity starts from 60000 BCE. The Genome studios during the Holocene have revealed that the genetic profile of humans settled in north, south, east and west of India is the same and has remained the same for the last more than 11000 years. Therefore, contrary to the popular belief, the Dravidians as well as north Indians have common ancestors and both are originals of India.[31]

"The wonder of modern science is that such historical dating, in agreement with Vedic statements, can be confirmed by multiple disciplines of scientific techniques. For example this genetic evidence for the indigenous origin of all Indians is corroborated by considerable independently found archaeological evidence, is consistent with evidence from other methodologies, such as astronomical, ecological and anthropological, and shows a continuity of culture with no external disruptions — no foreign invasions other than the well known British and Islamic influences as well as later Christian influences. Overwhelming evidence thus supports the conclusion that the ‘Aryans’ were the originals of India and their highly advanced culture has been flourishing for at least the last 11000 years.

................................................................................................

"Astronomy

"Numerous astronomical references to constellation and planetary configurations within the Vedic literatures, when input into recently developed planetarium software produce reliable and unambiguous dating of the events described within these Vedic scriptures, providing further corroboration."

So far, good. But here's a surprising statement by the author.

"These astronomical observances and calculations were developed and recorded by the indigenous population because the natural cycles of nature, such as the alternation of day and night and the phases of the moon, directly affect the conditions of human life. A reliable calendar was necessary to regulate agricultural activities as well as social and civic activities and particularly to calculate the timings of religious activities."

Explaining away the intricate Indian calendar with precise predictions for year to come, as needs of agriculture and mere rituals, wasn't expected from someone whose view wasn't thst of a colonial invader or a missionary.

Author has praised, amongst other things, ancient Indian knowledge of astronomy until this point. This, on the other hand, is comparable to a guest who exclaims that a hostess who is a doctor of mathematics needs to do fractions so she can divide food to guests, or should be disqualified of her degree because the cup of tea she served was not exactly the half cup asked for but closer to two third.

"References in Vedic texts to the solstices or equinoxes occurring near star groups or individual stars, because the rate of procession is known, help determine the time of events mentioned. The antiquity of the earliest Vedic calendar has been calculated as 7000 BCE based on references to solstices and equinoxes within the Vedic literatures."

This is, of course, modulo cycles of 26,000 years.

................................................................................................

"The Rig Veda & Other Vedic References

"References from the Rig Veda reveal a clear understanding of the astronomical cycles of day and night, month and the year as well as intercalary postulations for a 13th month to provide a reliable calendar.

"The Rig Veda gives more than 50 references to planetary configurations for which precise dates have been determined by modern planetary software. These astronomically related dates reach from 7000 BCE to 4000 BCE in a consistent manner.[32]"

Rgveda is far more ancient compared to Ramayana, now dated yo 14,500-11,000 BCE via explicit astronomical observations in the epic; Ramayana, of course, preceds Mahabharata, latter now inescapable dated to 4,500-6,000 BCE st the latest; and each can go back a number of cycles of n×26,000 years, always keeping relative chronological sequence of Vedas, Ramayana and Mahabharata in that order of time.

So dating Rgveda at 7,000 BCE is merely valid in putting an upper limit to hoefar back one must go, but in reality, it's far older.

As for the astronomical observations and references author mentions, most wouldn't be a unique fit, but would have repeated back in time.

"An early reference to a Vedic Calendar with the year beginning at Winter Solstice is found in the Rig Veda 5-77-1/2; 1-46-14; 7-69-3/2. In fact, there are 53 references in Rig Veda as prayers offered to Ashvini at dawn, referring to the pair of stars in the Aries constellation, used in the ritual to mark the year beginning. These particular references from the Rig Veda show the sky with the heliacal rising of Ashvini Nakshatra after Winter Solstice, marking the year beginning, are calculated by planetary software to be Jan 5, 7000 BCE, 0649 hrs.[33]

"Additional references given in the Rig Veda 1-112-13 and Aitareya Brahmana 18.18, 18.22 to the Winter Solstice occurring in Aries (Ashvini Nakshatra) when input into planetary software give the date of December 19, 7000 BCE at 0735 hours Local Time.[34] These planetary configurations date the origin of the Rig Veda as well as the Aitareya Brahmana, prior to 9014 BP (Before Present). The Shatapatha Brahmana (2.1.2.1-13) as well as the Taittiriya Brahmana (1.5.2) date a well established Nakshatra system to a particular time period.

"The Shatapatha Brahmana 2.1.2.3 refers to the Vernal Equinox as being in Krittika (nu Tau) which calculates to March 21st, 2174 BCE, providing a dating of the time of the Shatapatha Brahmana.[35]"

All this works when pushed back in past modulo cycles of 26,000, of course.

"The grand conjunction (in Aries) of five bright planets including the Sun and the moon in close proximity above the eastern horizon, accepted as legend in India, for the beginning of the Age of Kali-yuga is seen in planetary software as occurring January 13th, 3103 BCE, 22 days after the Winter Solstice. References to this are given in the Mahabharata as well as in statements by Aryabhata. Although scholars have formerly taken this as mythology, planetary software shows precisely this configuration.[36]"

WOW!!!

Nice!

"Even the date of the Mahabharata War of Kurukshetra has been calculated by Achar (2003)[37] as 3067 BCE based on astronomical references in the Mahabharata. This dating of some 5000 years BP is consistent with Vedic tradition and other Vedic references but in disagreement with the dating originally proposed by Max Muller and other early indologists as part of the AIT. This dating of the Mahabharata War at 3067 BCE is also mentioned by N. Kazanas [38] as highly significant. Although most subsequent scholars also accept the later dating of all these literatures, Max Muller adamantly refuted his own later dating, which set the foundation and precedence for this particular dating protocol. Recent overwhelming scientific evidence from multiple unrelated disciplines also supports the earlier dating — in agreement with Max Muller’s final statement and obliterating the foundation of the Aryan Invasion hypothesis."

On the contrary, Mahabharata is at least before the mentioned possible date of Kaliyuga, and much more likely 1,500 to 3,000 years before this 3,067 BCE, if not further in past n×26,000 years back for a positive value of n.

"To think, as the British colonialists proposed in the 1800’s at the height of their imperialism, that all these astronomical observances were concocted, is certainly absurd when one realises the unfathomable complexity of such an undertaking. For Indians to fabricate many hundreds of such references spread throughout the vast Vedic literatures, which are now known to be factual and consistent chronologically, would be an even greater achievement of these ancient Indian inhabitants than the incredible truth itself."

................................................................................................

"Remote Satellite Sensing & the Sarasvati River System

Author repeats a mistake here common to many others in interpretation of a word.

"This great river system, identified as the mighty Sarasvati River, is mentioned in numerous places throughout the Rig Veda as part of the Sapta Sindhu or Seven Rivers of importance.[39] This discovery very significantly fixes the date of the Rig Veda’s origin as prior to 2000 BCE because the Sarasvati River is described therein as flowing in full majesty from the mountains to the sea, so it had not yet dried up at the time Rig Veda appeared. Dr. David Frawley’s The Rig Veda details precise verses supporting such statements as we have mentioned throughout this article. “Indeed the Rig Veda knows no homeland but India.”[40] Frawley further states that the name Sindhu referring to the ocean “makes it impossible to place it (the Sapta Sindhu, including the Sarasvati River) in Afghanistan, Central Asia or Eurasia.”"

Indeed, Sindhu literally is ocean, not any other node of water; and interpretation of sindhu as river or body of water is incorrect, apart from it keeping such people from a major realisation - that "Sapta-Sindhva" is referring to an India before the ocean North between India and Asia vanished, and India joined Asia.

Also this misinterpretation misses the fact that a not the largest - never been the Karnes- river of India is thus named, but for largest ones are never referred to as Sindhu. This indicates the fact of this river having replaced an ocean that existed in North.

"Satellite remote sensing, supported by geological data, reveals the signatures of a significant Paleo-River Network in Northwest India flowing with great power around 6000 BCE and drying up around 2000 BCE due to tectonic and palaeo-climatic changes. This conclusion is supported by sedimentology, hydrology and drilling data.[41] Additional ecological references in ancient books relating to fluctuations in water volumes of ancient rivers mostly due to the melting of glaciers (such as those of the Indian Himalayas) seem in agreement with these dates as detected by satellite. The relics of this great river system are still observable by the above methods. This provides a useful tool in the dating of the Rig Veda and deals yet another fatal blow to the AIT.

"A great many places and rivers referred to not only in the Rig Veda but in other Epics, such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, have been found and excavated. The archaeological evidence correlates with descriptions given in these literatures. For example, Professor Nicholas Kazanas has written, “The river Sarasvati is praised as a mighty and all nourishing river in all the books of the Rig Veda except the fourth. Even in late hymns such as 8.21 or 10.64 and 10.177 Sarasvati is said to give wealth and nourishment and the poets invoke her as ‘great.’ In 6.52 Sarasvati is ’swollen by other (three or more) rivers;’ in 6.61 she is endless, swift moving, most dear among her sisters and nourishing the five tribes of the Vedic people; in 2.41.16 Sarasvati is the ‘best river; best mother, best goddess;’ in 7.95.2 this mighty river ‘flows pure from the mountains to the ocean.’[42] The drying up of the Sarasvati around 1900 BCE occurs long after these references in the Rig Veda. Analysis by archaeologists and palaeo-hydrologists reveals that this river flowed from the Himalayas to the Rann of Kutch on the ocean before 3800 BCE. This is in agreement with these satellite remote sensing findings as well as archaeologists’ conclusions regarding the building materials and the pre-brick techniques used in the early Harappan sites described in the Rig Veda.

"As a concluding remark we paraphrase the journalist B. R. Haran who has stated that, in no other nation and no other religion in the world has true history been so meticulously documented and supported by so many evidences.

"It is time for the modern inheritors of their glorious Vedic heritage to stand up intelligently for the real history of India and their beliefs.

................................................................................................

"Two and a half thousand years ago, in 520 BCE, Pythagorus founded his vegetarian school of Maths in Greece. Pythagorus was intrigued by whole numbers,noticing that pleasing harmonies are combinations of whole numbers. Convinced that the number one was the basis of the universe, he tried to make all three sides of a triangle an exact number of units, a feat which he was not able to accomplish. He was thus defeated by his own favorite geometrical shape, one for which he would be forever famous.

"His Pythagorean Theorem has been credited to him, even though ancient Indian texts, the Shulba Sutras (800 BCE) and the Shatapatha Brahmana (8th to 6th Centuries BCE) prove that this theorem was known in India some two thousand years before his birth."

"Romans invading Greece were interested in power, not abstract mathematics. They killed Archimedes in 212 BCE and thereby impeded the development of mathematics. Their system of Roman numerals was too complicated for calculating, so actual counting had to be done on a counting board, an early form of the abacus.

"Although the usage of the Roman numeral system spread all over Europe and remained the dominant numeral system for more than five hundred years, not a single Roman mathematician is celebrated today. The Romans were more interested in using numbers to record their conquests and count dead bodies."

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"Numbers in Early India

"In India, emphasis was not on military organisation but in finding enlightenment. Indians, as early as 500 BCE, devised a system of different symbols for every number from one to nine, a system that came to be called Arabic numerals, because they spread first to Islamic countries before reaching Europe centuries later."

"It seems clear from the early Sanskrit works on mathematics that the insistent demand of the times was there, for these books are full of problems of trade and social relationships involving complicated calculations. There are problems dealing with taxation, debt and interest, problems of partnership, barter and exchange, and the calculation of the fineness of gold. The complexities of society, government operations and extensive trade required simpler methods of calculation.

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"Earliest Indian Literary and Archaeological References

"When we discuss the numerals of today’s decimal number system we usually refer to them as ‘Arabian numbers.’ Their origin, however, is in India, where they were first published in the Lokavibhaga on the 28th August 458 AD. This Jain astronomical work, Lokavibhaga or ‘Parts of the Universe,’ is the earliest document clearly exhibiting familiarity with the decimal system. One section of this same work gives detailed astronomical observations that confirm to modern scholars that this was written on the date it claimed to be written: 25th August 458 CE (Julian calendar). As Ifrah[44] points out, this information not only allows us to date the document with precision, but also proves its authenticity. Should anyone doubt this astronomical information, it should be pointed out that to falsify such data requires a much greater understanding and skill than it does to make the original calculations.

"The origin of the modern decimal-based place value system is ascribed to the Indian mathematician Aryabhata in 498 CE. Using Sanskrit numeral words for the digits, Aryabhata stated, sthanam sthanam dasa gunam, or ‘place to place is ten times in value.’ The oldest record of this value place assignment is in a document recorded in 594 CE, a donation charter of Dadda III of Sankheda in the Bharukachcha region.

"The earliest recorded inscription of decimal digits to include the symbol for the digit zero, a small circle, was found at the Chaturbhuja Temple at Gwalior, India, dated 876 CE. This Sanskrit inscription states that a garden was planted to produce flowers for temple worship and calculations were needed to assure they had enough flowers. Fifty garlands are mentioned (line 20), here 50 and 270 are written with zero. It is accepted as the undisputed proof of the first use of zero.

"The usage of zero along with the other nine digits opened up a whole new world of science for the Indians. Indeed Indian astronomers were centuries ahead of the Christian world. The Indian scientists discovered that the earth spins on its axis and moves around the sun, a fact that Copernicus in Europe didn’t understand until a thousand years later—a discovery that he would have been persecuted for, had he lived longer.

"From these and other sources there can be no doubt that our modern system of arithmetic—differing only in variations on the symbols used for the digits and minor details of computational schemes—originated in India at least by 510 CE and quite possibly by 458 CE.

"The first sign that the Indian numerals were moving west comes from a source which predates the rise of the Arab nations. In 662 CE Severus Sebokht, a Nestorian bishop who lived in Keneshra on the Euphrates river, wrote regarding the Indian system of calculation with decimal numerals:

"“...more ingenious than those of the Greeks and the Babylonians, and of their valuable methods of calculation which surpass description...”[45]"

"This passage clearly indicates that knowledge of the Indian number system was known in lands soon to become part of the Arab world as early as the 7th Century. The passage itself, of course, would certainly suggest that few people in that part of the world knew anything of the system. Severus Sebokht as a Christian bishop would have been interested in calculating the date of Easter (a problem to Christian churches for many hundreds of years). This may have encouraged him to find out about the astronomy works of the Indians and in these, of course, he would find the arithmetic of the nine symbols.

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"The Decimal Number System

"The Indian numerals are elements of Sanskrit and existed in several variants well before their formal publication during the late Gupta Period (c. 320-540 CE). In contrast to all earlier number systems, the Indian numerals did not relate to fingers, pebbles, sticks or other physical objects.

"The development of this system hinged on three key abstract (and certainly non-intuitive) principles: (a) The idea of attaching to each basic figure graphical signs which were removed from all intuitive associations, and did not visually evoke the units they represented; (b) The idea of adopting the principle according to which the basic figures have a value which depends on the position they occupy in the representation of a number; and (c) The idea of a fully operational zero, filling the empty spaces of missing units and at the same time having the meaning of a null number. [46]

"The great intellectual achievement of the Indian number system can be appreciated when it is recognised what it means to abandon the representation of numbers through physical objects. It indicates that Indian priest-scientists thought of numbers as an intellectual concept, something abstract rather than concrete. This is a prerequisite for progress in mathematics and science in general, because the introduction of irrational numbers such as ‘pi,’ the number needed to calculate the area inside a circle, or the use of imaginary numbers is impossible unless the link between numbers and physical objects is broken.

"The Indian number system is exclusively a base 10 system, in contrast to the Babylonian (modern-day Iraq) system, which was base 60; for example, the calculation of time in seconds, minutes and hours. By the middle of the 2nd Millennium BCE, the Babylonian mathematics had a sophisticated sexagesimal positional numeral system (based on 60, not 10). Despite the invention of zero as a placeholder, the Babylonians never quite discovered zero as a number.

"The lack of a positional value (or zero) was indicated by a space between sexagesimal numerals. They added the ‘space’ symbol for the zero in about 400 BCE. However, this effort to save the first place-value number system did not overcome its other problems and the rise of Alexandria spelled the end of the Babylonian number system and its cuneiform (hieroglyphic like) numbers.

"It is remarkable that the rise of a civilisation as advanced as Alexandria also meant the end of a place-value number system in Europe for nearly 2000 years. Neither Egypt nor Greece nor Rome had a place-value number system, and throughout medieval times Europe used the absolute value number system of Rome (Roman numerals). This held back the development of mathematics in Europe and meant that before the period of Enlightenment of the 17th Century, the great mathematical discoveries were made elsewhere in East Asia and in Central America.

"The Mayans in Central America independently invented zero in the 4th Century CE. Their priest-astronomers used a snail-shell-like symbol to fill gaps in the (almost) base-20 positional ‘long-count’ system they used to calculate their calendar. They were highly skilled mathematicians, astronomers, artists and architects. However, they failed to make other key discoveries and inventions that might have helped their culture survive. The Mayan culture collapsed mysteriously around 900 CE. Both the Babylonians and the Mayans found zero the symbol, yet missed zero the number. Although China independently invented place value, they didn’t make the leap to zero until it was introduced to them by a Buddhist astronomer from India in 718 CE.

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"Zero Becomes a Real Number

"The concept of zero as a number and not merely a symbol for separation is attributed to India where by the 9th Century CE practical calculations were carried out using zero, which was treated like any other number, even in the case of division.

"The story of zero is actually a story of two zeroes: zero as a symbol to represent nothing and zero as a number that can be used in calculations and has its own mathematical properties.

"It has been commented that in India, the concept of nothing is important in its early religion and philosophy and so it was much more natural to have a symbol for it than for the Latin (Roman) and Greek systems. The rules for the use of zero were written down first by Brahmagupta, in his book Brahmasphutha Siddhanta (The Opening of the Universe) in the year 628 CE. Here Brahmagupta considers not only zero, but negative numbers, and the algebraic rules for the elementary operations of arithmetic with such numbers.

"The importance of the creation of the zero mark can never be exaggerated. This giving to airy nothing, not merely a local habitation and a name, a picture, a symbol, but helpful power, is the characteristic of the Hindu race from whence it sprang. It is like coining the Nirvana into dynamos. No single mathematical creation has been more potent for the general on-go of intelligence and power." - G. B. Halsted[47]"

"A very important distinction for the Indian symbol for zero, is that, unlike the Babylonian and Mayan zero, the Indian zero symbol came to be understood as meaning nothing.

"As the Indian decimal zero and its new mathematics spread from the Arab world to Europe in the Middle Ages, words derived from sifr and zephyrus came to refer to calculation, as well as to privileged knowledge and secret codes. Records show that the ancient Greeks seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number. They asked themselves, “How can nothing be something?” This lead to philosophical and, by the Medieval period, religious arguments about the nature and existence of zero and the vacuum.

"The word ‘zero’ came via the French word zéro, and ‘cipher’ came from the Arabic word safira which means “it was empty.” Also sifr, meaning ‘zero’ or ‘nothing’, was the translation for the Sanskrit word shunya, which means void or empty.

"The number zero was especially regarded with suspicion in Europe, so much so that the word cipher for zero became a word for secret code in modern usage. It is very likely a linguistic memory of the time when using decimal arithmetic was deemed evidence of dabbling in the occult, which was potentially punishable by the all-powerful Catholic Church with death.[48]"

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"Glorification of the Decimal Number System

"The Indian numerals and the positional number system were introduced to the Islamic civilisation by Al-Khwarizmi, the founder of several branches and basic concepts of mathematics. Al-Khwarizmi’s book on arithmetic synthesised Greek and Indian knowledge and also contained his own fundamental contribution to mathematics and science including an explanation of the use of zero. It was only centuries later, in the 12th Century, that the Indian numeral system was introduced to the Western world through Latin translations of his arithmetic.

"Michel de Montaigne, Mayor of Bordeaux (France) and one of the most learned men of his day, confessed in 1588 (prior to the widespread adoption of decimal arithmetic in Europe), that in spite of his great education and erudition, “I cannot yet cast account either with penne or counters.” That is, he could not do basic arithmetic.[49]

"Dantzig notes in regards to the discovery of the positional decimal arithmetic, “… it assumes the proportions of a world-event… without it no progress in arithmetic was possible.”[50]

"Pierre-Simon Laplace, the famous 19th Century mathematician, explained –

"The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged from India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that it’s significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated. It’s simplicity lies in the way it facilitated calculation and places arithmetic foremost amongst useful inventions. The importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyond the two greatest men of antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius.[51]"

"Ifrah describes the significance of this discovery in these terms –

"Now that we can stand back from the story, the birth of our modern number-system seems a colossal event in the history of humanity, as momentous as the mastery of fire, the development of agriculture, or the invention of writing, of the wheel, or of the steam engine.[52]"

"Indian mathematicians used their revolutionary number system to advance human knowledge at great speed. The Sthananga Sutra, an Indian religious work from the 2nd Century CE, contains detailed operations that involve logarithms to the base 2. Modern texts credit the discovery of logarithms to the Scottish mathematician John Napier, who published his discovery in 1614. Indian knowledge of logarithms thus precedes Napier’s discovery by more than 1000 years.

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"Panini’s Systematisation of Sanskrit & The Binary Number System

"Panini’s precise systematisation of the Sanskrit language in the 4th or 7th Century BCE is widely considered as a forerunner of the Backus Normal Form (discovered by John Backus in 1959), which forms the basis of the current computer language. Panini is recognised as one of the foremost geniuses of ancient India and is credited with the systematisation of Sanskrit as a language. Panini’s work was so thorough that no one in the past 2000 years has been able to improve on it. He codified every aspect of spoken communication, including pronunciation, tones and gestures. NASA scientist Rick Briggs, as part of his NASA research, showed that Sanskrit is the most perfectly suited, unambiguous, language for programming Artificial Intelligence.[53]

"Jain mathematicians (6th-7th Century BCE) have the distinction of being a bridge between the Vedic Period in mathematics to the so-called Classical Period. They are also credited with extricating mathematics from religious rituals. The Jains’ fascination with large numbers directly led them to defining infinity into several types.

"Pingala (300 to 200 BCE), a well-recognised Jain mathematician, although not strictly a mathematician but a musical theorist, is credited with first using the Binary numeral system in the form of short and long syllables, making it similar to Morse code. He and his contemporary Indian scholars used the Sanskrit word shunya to refer to zero or void. He is also credited with discovering the ‘Pascal Triangle’ and the binominal coefficient. Basic concepts of the Fibonacci numbers have also been described by Pingala.

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"The Decimal Number System Spreads to Muslim Countries

"Usage of the decimal number system spread to Muslim countries where scholars were amazed by it’s usage and simplicity. By 776 CE the Arab empire was beginning to take shape. The Arabic world, in comparison to Europe, was much more accepting of the Indian system — in fact, the West owes it’s knowledge of the scheme to Arab scholars. Arabian scholars were always prepared to give Indian scientists credit for their number system. An early Arabian work states that –

"We also inherited a treatise on calculation with numbers from the sciences of India, which Abu Djafar Mohammed Ibn Musa Al-Charismi developed further. It is the most comprehensive, most practical, and requires the least effort to learn; it testifies for the thorough intellect of the Indians, their creative talent, their superior ability to discriminate and their inventiveness.[54]"

"On the other hand, the Europeans response, during the British occupation of India to the extraordinary cultural and scientific achievements of India, was to postulate the Aryan Invasion Theory — that India’s wondrous heritage came from Europe. Although this theory remains a controversial issue, more recent archaeological, linguistic, genetic and other evidence has effectively shown that there is no substantiation for this Aryan Invasion Theory. The earliest known use of the Indian decimal number system in Europe is in a Sicilian coin of 1134; in Britain the first use is in 1490.

"Around the middle of the 10th Century, Al-Uqlidisi wrote, Kitab al-fusul fi al-hisab al-Hindi, which is the earliest surviving book that presents the Indian system. In it Al-Uqlidisi argues that this system is of practical value - “Most arithmeticians are obliged to use it in their work: since it is easy and immediate, requires little memorisation, provides quick answers, and demands little thought...”[55]

"In the fourth part of this book, Al-Uqlidisi showed how to modify the methods of calculating with Indian symbols, which had required a dust board, to methods which could be carried out with pen and paper. This requirement of a dust board had been an obstacle to the Indian system’s acceptance. For example As-Suli, after praising the Indian system for it’s great simplicity, wrote in the first half of the 10th Century –

"Official scribes nevertheless avoid using (the Indian system) because it requires equipment (like a dust board) and they consider that a system that requires nothing but the members of the body is more secure and more fitting to the dignity of a leader."

"Another reference to the transmission of Indian numerals is found in the work of Al-Qifti’s Chronology of the Scholars written around the end of the 12th Century. This publication quotes much earlier sources.[56]

"It was not simply that the Arabs took over the Indian number system. Rather different number systems were used simultaneously in the Arabic world over a long period of time. For example, there were at least three different types of arithmetic used in Arab countries in the 11th Century:

"A system derived from counting on the fingers with the numerals written entirely in words—this finger-reckoning arithmetic was the system used by the business community.

"• The sexagesimal system with numerals denoted by letters of the Arabic alphabet.

"• The arithmetic of the Indian numerals and fractions with the decimal place-value system.

"• Persian author Mohammed ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi wrote a book, often claimed to be the first Arabic text written including the rules of arithmetic for the decimal number system, called Kitab al Jabr wa’l-Muqabala (Rules of Restoring and Equating) dating from about 825 AD.[57]

"Although the original Arabic text is lost, a 12th Century Latin translation, Algoritmi de numero Indorum (in English, Al-Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning), gave rise to the word ‘algorithm’ deriving from his name in the title. Furthermore, from the Arabic title of the original book, Kitab al Jabr w’al-Muqabala, we derive our modern word ‘algebra.’[58]

"Al-Khwarizmi developed this numerical system further with quadratic equations, algebra, etc. — enabling science, mathematics and astronomy in Islamic countries to develop dramatically. However, on the other side of the Mediterranean, Christian Europe doggedly continued with the awkward Roman numerals for centuries.