The ancient scholars of India often receive brickbats instead of accolades when it comes to the recognition of their academic work in the fields of science. Here are some ancient Indian scientists whose discoveries framed the fundamentals of modern science
1. Aryabhatta 1: The Earth takes how long?
At the age of 23, Aryabhatta I was diligently observing the day and night sky and noting his observations and calculations for a mathematical system to figure out the workings of the universe for his now-famous work Aryabhatiyam
. The book, his only surviving treatise on mathematical astronomy, states that the Earth is spherical in shape, rotates on its axis and, like the other planets, revolves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit.
He also calculated that the Earth takes 23 hours 56 minutes and 4.01 seconds to complete one rotation
, which coincides with the modern value of 23:56:4.091
The kicker here is that he was right in his calculation; 1,500 years and 1,000 years later respectively, Copernicus and Galileo calculated and confirmed the same.
2. Brahmagupta: Proving that zero rules!
Nah. This isn’t a plug for SRK’s latest movie, but rather about a very important scholar who gave zero the value
that we truly come to value every time our salary comes in. Brahmagupta was the first mathematician to frame the rules of operations in his book, Brahmasphuta Siddhanta
, stating that the addition or subtraction of zero to or from any quantity, negative or positive, is always zero, that the product of any quantity with zero is zero, and that the division of any quantity by zero is infinity!
3. Bhaskara 1: Putting numbers in their place
While Brahmagupta framed the rules for zero, Bhaskara 1 gave zero a symbol - 0
. His most important contribution, however, was the representation of numbers in the positional system. Numbers are arranged in columns and have to be read from right to left as units, tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on.
Because of him, you can write the numerical form of a Googol, (which is the number 1 followed by a hundred 0s).
4. Kanada: Framing the Atomic Theory
Legend has it that the idea of the atomic theory came to Kanada when he threw away a morsel of food after he found he couldn’t cut it up anymore. This led to him thinking about how everything in the Universe is made up of pramanu
(atoms), the real entities that are obtained when a matter is divided and subdivided until further division is not possible.
Kanada was the earliest to put forward the idea that the atom was the indestructible particle of matter; some 2,500 years later, John Dalton introduced his Law of Atomic Theory
into modern-day physics, which espoused the same rules.
5. Baudhayana: Before Pythagoras
The book Sulba Sutra
, written by Baudhayana, states that, “a rope stretched along the length of the diagonal (hypotenuse) of a rectangle produces an area, which the vertical and horizontal sides make together.
While this might sound vaguely familiar to those fresh out school like 20 years ago, it is, in fact, a precursor to the Pythagoras theorem.
Here is the Pythagoras theorem we all learned (or didn’t) in school: “the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
6. Varahamihira: Looking at the stars
Astrology defines your every move, if you are of that bent of mind and belief. But ever wondered what formula astrologers are using? It is the same calculation that a scholar called Varahamihira used when he observed that the night sky shifts through the year. He was the first to mention in his work Pancha Siddhantika
that the ayanamsa, or the shifting of the equinox, is 50.32 seconds, a number that remains unchanged till this day.
This time period helps us chart and navigate the skies by night or day, learn about our horoscope for the year, and keep track of our favourite constellation.
7. Brahmagupta and Bhaskara II: Newton? Never heard of him!
In his book, Brahmasphutasiddhanta, Brahmagupta
"All heavy things are attracted towards the centre of the earth…The earth on all its sides is the same; all people on earth stand upright, and all heavy things fall down to the earth by a law of nature for it is the nature of the earth to attract and to keep things."
We can recognise this as a very, very early understanding of gravity.
His student, Bhaskara II
carried on his teacher’s work when he too noted in his book, Surya Siddhant
"Objects, fall on earth due to a force of attraction by the earth. Therefore, the earth, planets, constellations, moon, and sun are held in orbit due to this attraction."
8. Sushruta: The first plastic surgeon
America might have the last word on plastic surgery, but ancient India had the first plastic surgeon and surgery.
2600 years ago, Sushruta
and a colleague operated on a patient who had an accident with his nose. Sushruta employed the technique of forehead flap rhinoplasty, which is repairing the disfigured nose with a flap of skin from the forehead, a practice almost unchanged by modern plastic surgeons.
His book, Sushruta Samhita
, is the first classical book of surgery, in which he describes over120 surgical instruments, 300 surgical procedures and classifies human surgery in eight categories.