Drishtikone
You must have gotten and read many of those emails that talk of India’s historical accomplishments. They are meant to enhance and help our ego. Why do we need such a “boost” to our “ego”?
I believe that for Indians it has been the issue of getting their place under the sun… after the damage that Brits did to the culture. Examples like messing up temples and buildings like Konark etc.. and usurping the inventions like Wireless by Marconi from Jagdish Chandra Bose are but a few examples where the Europeans simply put a name to discoveries that someone else was responsible for or messed up stuff that they just couldnt deal with!
In scriptures as old as 4000 years, there is talk of “atomic world”, Planes, Missiles, Multiple Dimensions of creation, and examples which could only be of Einstein’s Relativity theory… and yet all this was totally negated throughout history!
It doesnt matter who gets his/her name on what in the final analysis.. because at the very end.. whatever is strong and with permanence will survive… that is why I believe there is a difference between a country and a civilization.
One thing that amuses is always is that Leonardo Da Vinci dreamt of a “plane like” thing a few hundreds back.. and within 200-odd years Wright brothers were flying the first prototype. Isnt it presumptuous to believe that those who actually wrote of planes and missiles in detail would have been just dreaming or poetic in intent and content?
Finally, poetic rendition of science has also hurt the “seriousness” of the Vedic accomplishments. Garuda Purana, for example, explains the entire process of human reproduction and foetus like it is in our modern biology books… and yet it is not taken seriously because of its “religious-poetic” nature. That I think was a great tragedy. Ironically, to help the oral tradition, what became a necessity (of turning science into poetry) became its nemesis also in times to come!
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