courtesy: http://freepressjournal.in/
V GangadharAirports, explained fiction writers like Arthur Hailey, were noisy places, whose high decibel levels disturbed residents of sylvan suburbs and stirred environmentalists to protest. The recently concluded 102nd Indian Science Congress in Mumbai had a different story to tell us, however. Papers read out by Indian ‘aviation experts’ at the Congress mentioned how aeroplanes flying 7,000 years ago travelled from continent to continent and planet to planet noiselessly.
We learnt hitherto unknown facts from the aviation technology expert, Captain Anand Bodas. Sanjaya in the Mahabharat gave a running commentary on the 18-day war to the blind Kaurava king Dhritarashtra.
The narration and its subsequent interpretation found its way to modern Vedic times as per the ‘Vaimanik Shastra.’ Such ancient aviation theories were documented nearly 7,000 years ago, by sages like Bharadwaj.
As the Science Congress progressed, many such theories were debunked by modern scientists and students of science from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru and the IITs. They saw these claims as grotesque attempts to glorify the past, encourage superstition and showing no understanding of aerodynamics. Should we posit fantastic theories on battlefields of the past or should we use those battlefields as springboards for further research? Captain Bodas and others did not hesitate to link aviation to Rigveda.
The links between ancient surgery in India and those mentioned in ancient Greece made no sense. The minority Indian groups also drew attention to our sophisticated ancient Indian surgery techniques, unlike some present day instances, where limbs are sometimes wrongly amputated.
Medicine experts at the Science Congress asserted that ancient Greek surgeons used excellent tools and passed them on to ancient Indians. Surgery came to them naturally. Sailors on British and European vessels, from the 17th century onwards, who needed dental treatment, were plied with liquor to numb them to the pain of the surgery. The ancient Greeks were more sophisticated and used chloroform, which made the process easier.
The Science Congress did not refer to the more recent quirks in the US and Europe, like Russian scientists munching on peanuts on the eve of a rocket launch. When Indian scientists and astronomers gathered to witness and study a total solar eclipse some years ago in Hyderabad, foreign scientists present wondered why their Indian colleagues disappeared on and off, coming back looking much fresher. Obviously they had disappeared for a quick ‘holy’ bath, followed by a mini-puja, with ‘prasad’ and whatnot. A happy mix of ancient ritual and modern science.
Inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Science Congress diehard Conservatives put out dozens of ‘Old is gold’ nuggets of information, met with much applause by the PM and his group. How many of us knew that Mathematics, Algebra, Zero, Infinity and the decimal system were known to our ancients and that we gave these ideas to the West? Modi himself applauded cosmetic surgery that took place aeons ago. It was made clear at the science meet that much of the teaching and learning was done in Sanskrit.
Ancient India was generous enough to share her scientific knowledge with other nations and civilisations. Dr Harsh Vardhan, the BJP minister from Delhi, explained that sharing knowledge came naturally to our ancient scientific Indians. We gave the Pythagoras Theorem to ancient Greece (we don’t know what for). Visiting potentates liked zebra meat and ancient Indian kings obliged them with herds of zebras, explaining that ‘all zebras’ had been donated and thus this branch of mathematics came to be known as Algebra.
With the NDA Government determined to popularise ancient science and Sanskrit, several more innovations are likely to follow. The next topic of research could be transmigration of souls (souls of living birds and animals entering human bodies or human souls entering other human bodies, as in the case of King Vikramaditya). We could understand bird language thus and tweet better, perhaps.
These are included in the science syllabus for the 2016 Science Conference in Vikramaditya Nagar. With India opting to follow the World Trade Order and Intellectual Copyright Act, there is an ambitious plan to ‘pinch’ some copyright material from foreign sources. Just to make up for the Algebra from Arabia and Geometry from Greece.
The aviation front opens up newer skies. Our flying ‘aakash sundaris’ could take crash courses in make-up from female members of ancient cabin crew, who relied on naturally available beauty aids. We should give back generously for all that we have got.
In honour of Pythagoras, we should name a few of our major roads (and parks) after him, but must make sure these roads are pothole-free because his theorem did not account for these modern day pitfalls. Of course, one gets the hiccups thinking of the scientist who jumped out of the bath, shouting out the Sanskrit equivalent of Eureka and one must pray that he was halfway decently clad, in the finest short-stapled cotton we were producing at that time.
When imagination took wing….