Thanks to a comment left on this blog, I was alerted to this website maintained by Brian Champness and dedicated to the memory of one of the greatest scientists that India has produced in modern times - Sir J C Bose.
I have written about Acharya Bose before…but he deserves far more attention than one single post…and I was very glad when I came across Brian’s site in which he explores aspects of consciousness and feelings in plants - a subject first studied by Sir Bose and now coming inder increasing interest from scientists around the world.
Some excerpts from “Are Plants Conscious?” (emphasis mine):
The Indian scientist Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was both physicist and plant physiologist. In his early life he invented a new type of coherer - an early form of radio signal detector - which enabled him to transmit radio waves over distance a full year before Marconi. He spent much of the rest of his life exploring minute responses to external stimuli applied to plants. He demonstrated that plant tissues under different kinds of stimulation produce electric responses similar to those produced by animal tissues. His extraordinary experimental results were achieved by using a range of ultra sensitive measuring instruments - also his own invention. He was the first Indian scientist to be elected to The Royal Society - in London, 1920.
His plant sensitivity findings can be explained in a number of ways. Some scientists prefer to use conventional materialist explanations in terms of the flow and transmission of chemical and bio-chemical substances. And, as V.A. Shepherd has pointed out, Bose “had argued all along the importance of electrical signalling in plants, and the world has now come around to this view.” Others, mainly in the East, see Bose’s findings as providing support for ancient Hindu vedantic theories of consciousness - even in plants. Bose himself was comfortable with both approaches to the explanation and understanding of his findings.
This project uses J C Bose’s life and work as a inspirational base from which to explore these different kinds of explanation, and their implications.
Brian - a retired psychologist and researcher who was born in then then Calcutta (and - in a wonderful coincidence - on a street now called Acharya JC Bose Road!) - is a devoted Indophile and “….has now postponed organising Chamber Music concerts in order to concentrate on the life and times of one of India’s great scientists, and to look at how his work has been developed and explained.”
In an email he explained his interest in Acharya Bose’s work:
…Even more exciting was (J C Bose’s) his work on electrical communication within plants. He designed and conducted hundreds of experiments on how plants respond to stimuli, showing among other things that they use electrical in addition to chemically based communication.
Of most interest to me is how these results have been interpreted and explained. In particular, as an old experimentalist I am increasingly interested in how ancient Hindu wisdom would interpret the results, in terms of consciousness and other vedic concepts.
On his website, Brian mentions about the philosophical and spiritual aspects of his interest:
How does this (Sir J C Bose’s) approach to the understanding of consciousness compare with some of the ideas on ‘levels of consciousness’ in present day psychology, philosophy and neurology?
“In Hinduism there are two categories of knowledge (i) para vidya - the spiritual knowledge and (ii) apara vidya - material knowledge. Scientifc knowledge is the realm of apara vidya. Spiritual knowledge - knowledge of God and life - belongs to para vidya. Hinduism points out that scientific knowledge can lead to spiritual knowledge.” Singh ibid.
How far did Bose journey into the apara vidya realm in the way he discussed and thought about his work?
Brian is looking for references and more material to help him explore these questions…If any of you have read or studied about these aspects of Vedic philosophy or science before, please do get in touch with him @ bose AT areplantsconscious.com
Via his website, I also learnt of several programmes being organised to commemorate the 150th birthday of Sir Bose and Cambridge University in UK will be unveiling a wall plaque in his memory on the 150th anniversary day, 30th November 2008.
Brian mentioned in his email that “…I hope that the book and CD will help to make sure that Sir J C Bose is a little less unsung!” - I am sure it will, Brian.
My heartfelt thanks and gratitude to Brian Champness for his work and dedication to ensure that Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose becomes a little less unsung. Thank you Brian.
Related Posts:
An Unsung Hero…
Atoms, Neurons and Consciousness…
.
August 27th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Indian Science and Mathematics, Science & Mathematics in Ancient India, Spirituality & Philosophy |
no comments
Many of you mayhavecome across this information about “Ancient Indian Scientists” before. I received it in a chain email but I shall be most grateful if any reader(s) have links or references to the original source(s).
There are many assertions and statements herethat have not been verified or explained (see e.g. the entry on Acharya Bharadwaj who is credited with advances in aviation technology*). We need to source and evidencethese it to make it more credible.
Some excerpts below (statements on which I need help are marked in italics):
***
ARYABHATT (476 CE), ASTRONOMER and MATHEMATICIAN
Born in 476 CE in Kusumpur (Bihar), Aryabhatt’s intellectual brilliance remapped the boundaries of mathematics and astronomy. In 499 CE, at the age of 23, he wrote a text on astronomy and an unparallel treatise on mathematics called “Aryabhatiyam.” He formulated the process of calculating the motion of planets and the time of eclipses. Aryabhatt was the first to proclaim that the earth is round, it rotates on its axis, orbits the sun and is suspended in space - 1000 years before Copernicus published his heliocentric theory. He is also acknowledged for calculating p (Pi) to four decimal places: 3.1416 and the sine table in trigonometry. Centuries later, in 825 CE, the Arab mathematician, Mohammed Ibna Musa credited the value of Pi to the Indians… And above all, his most spectacular contribution was the concept of zero (- need help in clarifying/verifying this)
***
BHASKARACHARYA II(1114-1183 CE), ALGEBRA
Born in the obscure village of Vijjadit (Jalgaon) in Maharastra, Bhaskaracharya’s work in Algebra, Arithmetic and Geometry catapulted him to fame and immortality. His renowned mathematical works called “Lilavati” and “Bijaganita” are considered to be unparalled and a memorial to his profound intelligence. Its translation in several languages of the world bear testimony to its eminence. In his treatise “Siddhant Shiromani” he writes on planetary positions, eclipses, cosmography, mathematical techniques and astronomical equipment. In the “Surya Siddhant” he makes a note on the force of gravity: “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.” Bhaskaracharya was the first to discover gravity, 500 years before Sir Isaac Newton.
Keep Reading…
April 28th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Indian Medicine & Ayurveda, Indian Science and Mathematics, Medieval Indian History, Miscellaneous, Science & Mathematics in Ancient India, Spirituality & Philosophy, Technology in India |
4 comments
I recently stumbled on this news-item about the development of a new type of corrosion-resistant iron by Prof Balasubramaniam and one of his colleagues at IIT, Kanpur (emphasis mine):
…Indian metallurgists have developed a type of corrosion-resistant iron that construction engineers would love. And vital clues for it came for Delhi’s famous Iron Pillar that has been standing tall for over 1,600 years.
Developed by Ramamurthy Balasubramaniam and his former student Gadadhar Sahoo of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur, the iron contains phosphorus and shows remarkable resistance to corrosion, especially in concrete.
…
Ironically, Bala’s material is not new. It was being made by Indian ironsmiths centuries ago. Bala says he got the clue for developing this material from the six-tonne seven-metre tall Delhi Iron Pillar - a major tourist attraction in the Qutb Minar complex — that has been standing for centuries in the harsh weather of the capital without any corrosion.
“As a metallurgist, I was intrigued,” Bala told IANS. And his passionate quest to unravel the mystery that began in 1990s has now culminated in phosphoric irons.
…(commendably) All the work, he said, was done with institute funds without any external support.
Most of you of course knowabout the Iron Pillar but I was not aware that it was originally located at Udayagiri (roughly translated as “sunrise peak”)near Vidisha where it was part of a complex of temples and buildings.
At the Udayagiri site, the pillar almost certainly served an important astronomical function.The Udaygiri complex itselfoffersclear evidence of advanced knowledge and understanding of astronomy in ancient India - a knowledge that survived at least until the early centuries of the millenium (~400 A.D.).
Incidentally, the pillar appears to befurther proof of the distortion of history in the dash to appear “secular” or “modern”.
So even thoughit is widely acknowledgedthat the pillar was constructed and erected during the reign of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (375-413), instead of being called the Chandragupta (or Vikramaditya) Pillar, it is commonly referred to as the “Iron Pillar” or the”Mehrauli Pillar”*.
Isn’t this exactly how an entire generation “forgets” its history? I wonder.
Related Posts:
Lies and half-truths in the name of nationalintegration
Does no one remember the Indian contribution toTechnology?
.
* As an interesting exercise, google for “Mehrauli Pillar”, “Iron Pillar” and “Chandragupta Pillar” - the results will speak for themselves.
Further Reading:
A review of “Delhi Iron Pillar: New Insights. Balasubramaniam, R. ”
On the astronomical significance of the Delhi iron pillarby R. Balasubramaniam and Meera I. Dass
.
October 22nd, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Impact of Islam on India, Medieval Indian History, Post Independence History, Science & Mathematics in Ancient India, Technology in India |
4 comments
I recently stumbled across this article Time Travel Machine Outlinedwhich provides food for thought for those who deride the stories in the puranas about “Vimanas” as mere myths.
The report talks about recent research at Haifas Israel Instt. of Technology that could possibly enable distant future generations to travel into the past
The hypothesis is - if space-time is bent far enough, so that time lines actually turn back on themselves to form a loop, such a manipulation could essentially get objects/people back in time.
Physicist Amos Ori whose findings are detailed in the Aug. 3 issue of the journal Physical Review D is quoted in the article as saying We know that bending does happen all the time, but we want the bending to be strong enough and to take a special form where the lines of time make closed loopsWe are trying to find out if it is possible to manipulate space-time to develop in such a way.”
Now there is still a very way to go before any of this becomes a reality. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating idea.
This reminded me of something I wrote more than two years ago about Vimanas but never got around to circulating widely. In an article titled, Vimanas Science Fiction or Unexplained Mystery?, I explored the idea of whether there might be something more to the stories about Vimanas in our sacred texts than pure fantasy.
Keep Reading…
September 6th, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Indian Science and Mathematics, Science & Mathematics in Ancient India, Technology in India |
2 comments
Came across this amazing storyin a recent issue of the technology magazine Red Herring: “Copper Cure-all?”.
It lists some amazing medicinal properties of Copper (”Taamba” in Hindi or “Tamra” in Sanskrit) which should not surprise most people of my generation who were taught as children that drinking water from copper vessels (and wearing it next to your skin) has beneficial effects.
Another example of ancient “wisdom” being proven right by modern “science”?
No doubt some of youwill notice that there is no mention of use of copper in India in the opening paragraph.
Excerpts:
“Could copper be the next miracle material? Its been used for centuries for its metallurgic and antibacterial properties the ancient Egyptians used copper medical instruments in surgeries, and water was stored in copper pots to curb the growth of pathogens.
Today to the delight of the cosmetics industry, copper has been found to stimulate collagen production, and companies like Neutrogena and Neova have since integrated copper into skin creams for treating wrinkles.
But now, North Carolina and Israel-based Cupron has taken the concept a big step further and integrated the metal into fabric. Cupron incorporates copper ions into fibers that are then woven into cotton or synthetic fabrics which are then made into pillow cases to smooth wrinkles, into socks to cure athlete’s foot, and into dressings for diabetics ores.
But there’s more, potentially much more. According to Dr. Gadi Borkow, the company’s chief medical officer, copper oxide has the ability to kill viruses like HIV; used as a filter for blood transfusions or in breast feeding, the spread of the virus could, in theory be prevented”. Copper is a wide-spectrum antiviral,” Dr. Borkow says. “It doesn’t only kill HIV-it kills all the viruses that we’ve been testing so far.”
Dr. Borkow first became involved with the company after Cupron CEO Jeff Gabbay came to him with copper-impregnated socks, which were supposed to help athlete’s foot. “[They] gave me the socks, and after two days, they got rid of my athlete’s foot!” he says still amazed, Mr. Gabbay had read about copper oxide’s antiviral properties and tapped Dr. Borkow, then an HIV research scientist at the Ruth Ben-Ari Institute of Clinical Immunology & AIDS Center at Hebrew University to develop HIV treatments with the metal.
…”
The article is written by Marisa Taylor and appears onPg 21 ofRed Herring issue dated 12.18.06 (18th Dec 06)
January 3rd, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Indian Medicine & Ayurveda, Science & Mathematics in Ancient India |
3 comments
Whenever I read about the great Arabic contribution to Mathematics and Science (often in an apologetic tone of how could these great people come to such a pass?) the thing that really upsets me is the complete omission of any reference to the Hindu contribution to mathematics and numbers.
Slightly more than a year ago (Aug 04), in an article in the Sunday Times, Michael Portillo, eminent Conservative party leader in the UK and a one-time aspirant to the leadership of the Tory Party, wrote that, Islam brought back to the West knowledge of architecture, mathematics and astronomy that had been lost during the Dark Ages.
In response, I wrote,
The phrase brought back is at best, condescending and at worse, historically inaccurate.
For this knowledge, which Arab traders brought to Europe (typified in the Arabic numeral system - itself a misnomer, since the Arabs did not invent it but merely acted as the purveyors of this knowledge) was not Islamic or Arabic. In fact much of this knowledge was originally derived from ancient Vedic literature from India and passed through Arab traders and conquests to Middle East and eventually reaching Europe.
To quote from Carl B. Boyer in his “History of Mathematics”, …Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi, …, who died sometime before 850, wrote more than a half dozen astronomical and mathematical works, of which the earliest were probably based on the Sindhind derived from India. Besides … [he] wrote two books on arithmetic and algebra which played very important roles in the history of mathematics. … In this work, based presumably on an Arabic translation of Brahmagupta, al-Khwarizmi gave so full an account of the Hindu numerals that he probably is responsible for the widespread but false impression that our system of numeration is Arabic in origin. … [pages 227-228]….
In a translation of Alberuni s Indica, a seminal work of this period (c.1030 AD), Edward Sachau, writes this in his introduction, Many Arab authors took up the subjects communicated to them by the Hindus and worked them out in original compositions , commentaries and extracts. A favourite subject of theirs was Indian mathematics…” etc.
Needless to say, the letter never got published.
Then, more recently, while reading the The World is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman , I came across this text in Chapter 11, “The Unflat World” (Pg 405), “As Nayan Chanda, the editor of YaleGlobal Online pointed out to me, it was the Arab-Muslim world that gave birth to algebra and algorithms, terms both derived form Arabic words. In other words, noted Chanda, “The entire modern information revolution, which is built to a large degree on algorithms, can trace its roots all the way back to Arab-Muslim civilization and the great learning centres of Baghdad and Alexandria,” which first introduced these concepts, then transferred them to Europe through Muslim Spain.
Dismayed, I wrote the following email to Nayan:
May I respectfully point out that is not historically accurate and continuing research is providing evidence that the roots of the so-called Arab contribution to Mathematics and Science were further east in the lands of India and in the works of Indian mathematicians and scholars from several centuries ago.
I then gave a couple of examples and concluded by saying:
I hope that you will re-consider your views in the light of these excerpts and a significant body of research that is now publicly available on this subject. I would be more than happy to provide more details if you wish.
No acknowledgement was expected and none was received. I wanted to copy Thomas Friedman on it but could not find his contact details on his website the only email address was that of his literary agent and PR agency.
This apparently widespread misunderstanding and ignorance - about the Hindu contribution to the number system and sciences - prompted me to dig deeper. Here is what I found:
From an online research piece on Al-Khwarizmi and his work (by Shawn Overbay, Jimmy Schorer, and Heather Conger)
Al-Khwarizmi wrote numerous books that played important roles in arithematic and algebra. In his work, De numero indorum (Concerning the Hindu Art of Reckoning), it was based presumably on an Arabic translation of Brahmagupta where he gave a full account of the Hindu numerals which was the first to expound the system with its digits 0,1,2,3,….,9 and decimal place value which was a fairly recent arrival from India. Because of this book with the Latin translations made a false inquiry that our system of numeration is arabic in origin. The new notation came to be known as that of al-Khwarizmi, or more carelessly, algorismi; ultimately the scheme of numeration making use of the Hindu numerals came to be called simply algorism or algorithm, a word that, originally derived from the name al-Khwarizmi, now means, more generally, any peculiar rule of procedure or operation.
Interestingly, as the article notes, The Hindu numerals like much new mathematics were not welcomed by all. In 1299 there was a law in the commercial center of Florence forbidding their use; to this day this law is respected when we write the amount on a check in longhand (ernie.bgsu.edu). From a very well-researched online article, Numbers: Their History and Meaning
It is now universally accepted that our decimal numbers derive from forms, which were invented in India and transmitted via Arab culture to Europe, undergoing a number of changes on the way. We also know that several different ways of writing numbers evolved in India before it became possible for existing decimal numerals to be marred with the place-value principle of the Babylonians to give birth to the system which eventually became the one which we use today.
Because of lack of authentic records, very little is known of the development of ancient Hindu mathematics. The earliest history is preserved in the 5000-year-old ruins of a city at Mohenjo Daro, located Northeast of present-day Karachi in Pakistan. Evidence of wide streets, brick dwellings an apartment houses with tiled bathrooms, covered city drains, and community swimming pools indicates a civilisation as advanced as that found anywhere else in the ancient Orient.
These early peoples had systems of writing, counting, weighing, and measuring, and they dug canals for irrigation. All this required basic mathematics and engineering.
And later in the article, The special interest of the Indian system is that it is the earliest form of the one, which we use today. Two and three were represented by repetitions of the horizontal stroke for one. There were distinct symbols for four to nine and also for ten and multiples of ten up to ninety, and for hundred and thousand.
and further Knowledge of the Hindu system spread through the Arab world, reaching the Arabs of the West in Spain before the end of the tenth century. The earliest European manuscript, which came from the Hindu numerals were modified in north-Spain from the year 976. And finally an important point for those who maintain that the concept of zero was also evident in some other civilisations: Only the Hindus within the context of Indo-European civilisations have consistently used zero.
Fortunately, online encyclopaedias came across as less biased and more open in acknowledging the true source of the Arabic number system. For example, from MSN Encarta
The system of numbers that we use today, with each number having an absolute value and a place value (units, tens, hundreds, and so forth) originated in India. Mathematicians in India also were the first to recognize zero as both an integer and a placeholder. When the Indian numeration system was developed is not known, but digits similar to the Arabic numerals used today have been found in a Hindu temple built about 250 bc.
In the 5th century Hindu mathematician and astronomer Aryabhata studied many of the same problems as Diophantus but went beyond the Greek mathematician in his use of fractions as opposed to whole numbers to solve indeterminate equations (equations that have no unique solutions). Aryabhata also figured the value of P (pi) accurately to eight places, thus coming closer to its value than any other mathematician of ancient times. In astronomy, he proposed that Earth orbited the sun and correctly explained eclipses of the Sun and Moon.
The earliest known use of negative numbers in mathematics was by Hindu mathematician Brahmagupta about ad 630. He presented rules for them in terms of fortunes (positive numbers) and debts (negative numbers).
The best-known Indian mathematician of the early period was Bhaskara, who lived in the 12th century. Bhaskara supplied the correct answer for division by zero as well as rules for operating with irrational numbers. Bhaskara wrote six books on mathematics, including Lilavati (The Beautiful), which summarized mathematical knowledge in India up to his time, and Karanakutuhala, translated as Calculation of Astronomical Wonders.
The reality is that the so-called Arab contribution to mathematics was substantially built on prior knowledge of the Hindus and the Greeks and while the Greek influence and origins are frequently acknowledged, the Hindu contribution is very rarely mentioned.
We need to spread awareness about this and try and establish the facts whenever an opportunity arises unless we do that, this history will be lost and become so little-known and distant as to become a myth.
Talking of forgotten Indian contribution to sciences and arts, here is another example of a glaring error in a recent news story in TIME Magazine and an email I sent in response
May I point out two inaccuracies in your recent news story on an exhibition on Arab Science in Paris titled, Ahead of Their Time (Time Magazine, Nov 21, 05; Pp48-49) by Ann Morrison?
In a paragraph about the Arabs interest in astronomy, Ann writes, Though the Arabs built many observatories during the Golden Age, not many survived. But viewers can see current images of two of these amazing outdoor structures in the Indian cities of Delhi and Jaipur
The observatories that Ann refers to in this paragraph were not built by Arabs but by the Hindu ruler Sawai Raja Jai Singh between 1724-1730 and were amongst the five that he built in Northern India (the other three were at Varanasi, Ujjain and Mathura) and are called Jantar Mantar (actually Yantra Mantra, yantra for instrument and mantra for formula).
The observatory in Delhi has also been depicted in a postage stamp and was the logo of the 1982 Asian Games, held in New Delhi, India.
To call them examples of Arab interest in the sciences is inaccurate and misleading.
In a later paragraph which details the interest of Arab scholars in astrology, Ann writes, Another manuscript illustration from 17th century India, Astrologers working on a Nativity, shows a procession of music makers and gift bearers wending their way through palace walls toward a newborn who would grow up to be the 14th century warrior Tamerlane…
Again, this is an example of Indian art (and Indian interest in astrology) rather than having anything to do with Arabs or Arab art. Tamerlane himself was not an Arab king but from Central Asia (as were the Mughals).
As usual, I received neither an acknowledgement nor a response.
For those of you who would like to read more:
Heres Alberuni on Pre-Islamic India’s Science, Math, and Architecture
And an interesting article on the origin of the decimal system.
November 25th, 2005
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Science & Mathematics in Ancient India |
23 comments
and my inferences are based on...
