The last lecture ended with the note that the new established European universities of the 13th and 14th centuries produced many translations of Arabic texts into Latin. Arabic science, a child of the Islamic civilization, was an amalgam of the best the world had to offer. It drew as much on the Greek classics as on the science of the east. Before we turn to the achievements and history of Arabic science we therefore have to go back in time and look at the development of science in eastern Asia, particularly India and China.
When we speak about Indian civilizations we have to refer to what is known geographically as the Indian subcontinent, the part of Asia that is today roughly taken up by the countries of India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh. The first Indian civilization - and as we saw in Lecture 2 one of the oldest civilizations of the world - was located in today's Pakistan. Known as the Indus civilization, it lasted from about 2800 BC to about 2000 BC and established a society based on irrigation of the large Indus River plain.
After the decline of the cities of the Indus civilization life returned to a self-sufficient village economy for several hundred years, possibly as long as one millennium. The second great Indian civilization began some time after the arrival of the Aryans, foreign intruders whose economy was based on cattle raising and herding. The Aryans introduced the script (Sanskrit) and established a caste (jati) society. The resulting social order is known as the Ganges civilization.
The Aryan caste system distinguished, in order of importance:
The upper three castes were Aryan, while all people from the original population were Sudras.
The Ganges civilization was organized into clans. Each clan owned the animals and pastures, but the villages remained self-sufficient and only paid tribute to the clans. Slavery developed were peasants could not pay their taxes but was not widespread and generally restricted to service as house slaves.
The years 800 - 600 BC saw the arrival of the Iron Age from the west, only about 200 - 400 years after iron technology had reached Greece. The resulting population increase produced a larger taxation base. The growing clans began to compete for power, and the first kingdom was established in the Ganges valley. The Sudras managed to use the ongoing conflict between traditional clan republics and the new autocratic kingdoms to improve their situation; the Brahman law manuscripts of the time now gave them the right to own property, to bear witness in court and to practice a trade. As a result the social standing of the Vaisyas, the farming caste of the Aryans, did not differ much any more from that of the Sudras.
The first India-wide kingdom developed under the Nanda dynasty from 544 BC onward and was firmly established by 325, when all of northern India was united under one ruler. (The exception was the Punjab, which was briefly occupied by Alexander the Great in 327 - 325 BC). This period culminated in the reign of Candra Gupta, a high point in Indian history at about the time when Alexandria in Egypt became the centre of science in the west.
Through all these millennia the Indian economy continued to rely on the myriad of self-sufficient villages. There was little incentive for commerce of any kind, and the countryside could also not offer much expertise for the production of the luxury goods required by the ruling class. This led to the state monopoly of mining (particularly gemstone mining), forestry, salt and alcohol and to the development of a large state-owned manufacture of fashion textiles, jewellery and other valuable goods.
The resulting urban economy supported a large trade with other civilizations over the famous land route through Persia. Enlightened rulers used the state income to develop India's infrastructure and social services. The high point of this period was the reign of Asoka ( 265 - 238 BC), who introduced public hospitals, free medicine, rest houses along the highways and veterinary hospitals.
The period 236 BC - 300 AD was characterized by slow disintegration into small states, interrupted only by the reign of Kaniska who could unite northern India into one kingdom during 78 - 101 AD. The character of the Indian economy did not change, but international trade turned to sea-going ships and included Egypt, Rome, China and other parts of Asia. Spices, perfumes, textiles and colour-fast dyes were important exports.
The years 300 - 500 AD, when the Roman empire came under barbarian control, was India's "Golden Age." Candra Gupta II (c. 380 - 414) united northern India again. He maintained the decentralized democratic administration of villages, cities and provinces but made the Kshatrias responsible for tax collection by assigning land to them. The Kshatrias became effectively landlords appointed by the king.
When the Gupta empire disintegrated and was replaced by many small autocratic states, their rulers kept the Gupta administration system. The self-sufficient villages were now allocated to Kshatria officers. Although their economy did not change, they were now under a local feudal ruler, who reported to the king in theory but was often a law to himself.
The arrival of Islam can be dated to 712, when Muhammad Ibn Kasim gained control of the western Indian province of Sind. Increasing military conflict forced the rulers of the many small states to maintain large armies, which they could only finance through allocation of land to their officers as feudal landlords. This accelerated and completed the process of transition to a feudal society. It also promoted the establishment of new cities that began as garrisons and grew to supply the necessary trades in support of the military.
The slow expansion of Muslim rule into India resulted in a partial replacement of the Kshatrian landlords by a new Islamic feudal aristocracy. The Sultanate of Delhi was founded in 1206 - 1210. By the time of the European Renaissance it was about to be expanded into the great Mughal Empire that saw another period of flourishing arts and intellectual endeavour. The empire lasted into the 19th century, when it was brought down by British colonial forces.
The timeline summarizes the development. It illustrates the alternation of periods of social progress with periods of stagnation and decay and highlights the rising influence of the Islamic civilization. India's history under the Mughal rulers Akbar the Great, Jahangir and Shah Jahan forms part of the Islamic civilization, and we shall return to them in Lecture 16.
We already looked briefly at Indian medicine in Lecture 9, where we noted that first written instructions for the treatment of diseases through incantations and medicine go back to the Vedas, the main literary work of the Ganges period. The two fundamental works in Indian medicine, the Susruta-samhita and the Atreya-samhita, were both written in the later part of the Ganges civilization (about 600 BC). The Atreya-samhita is lost, but detailed information about it is known from the work of King Kaniska's court physician Caraka, which was written just before 100 AD.
Medicine attracts the attention of any ruling class, and autocratic kings and feudal regents are no exception. Indian medicine found particularly favourable conditions to develop and gain a lead over the medical art of all other civilizations. As mentioned in Lecture 9, Indian surgeons found an early way to circumvent the religious taboo on dissection of corpses and therefore had better knowledge of the human anatomy than anyone else. The other, not least important factor was the support for physicians and surgeons from enlightened rulers like Asoka, who established a public health system in the 3rd century BC, and Candra Gupta II, who revived Asoka's tradition 600 years later.
As a result Indian physicians and surgeons were world leaders in all areas of medical practice well into the Middle Ages. This was also true for veterinary medicine, since Asoka's medical support system included veterinary hospitals.
It has of course to be noted here that the benevolent character and moral greatness of particular individuals cannot by itself explain the high levels of achievement of early Indian medical science. The actions of Asoka and Candra Gupta II were admirable, and India rightly holds the two kings in highest regard even today; but they were a consequence of the intellectual climate of the time. This will become clearer in the next section when we turn to Indian religion.
Information about the state of technology of a civilization can be gained from archaeological excavations. They show that the Indus civilization had developed building techniques for bathrooms and large basins (see Lecture 2) that were only surpassed by Roman baths, which were built 2500 years later. Drains were laid underground, with access for easy maintenance.
How much of the knowledge survived until the arrival of the Aryans is uncertain. Greek travellers were full of admiration for the cities of the Mauryan empire (about 250 BC), but their buildings used wood as construction material, and little of them remains today.
In early societies technological innovation came mostly from the working classes, who were confronted with technological problems every day and had a huge reservoir of talent. In India many villages were still in the stone age when the iron technology arrived from the west. Much of India thus never went through a Bronze Age period. But it had experimented with alchemy from early times and took up the new technology very quickly.
At the time of Kaniska (100 AD) Indian expertise in metallurgy was at least comparable to the skills of Rome. Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka), which had experienced strong Indian influence from Asoka's time (250 BC), traded extensively with Rome and was quite skilled in getting good value for its money: The National Museum of Sri Lanka in Colombo has a large collection of Roman coins, most of them locally made counterfeits.
We saw earlier that one of the particular aspects of Indian society was the degree in which state-owned enterprises were involved in the production of goods. An essential part of the king's manufacturing activities were workshops for weapons production. Candra Gupta's government manual Arthasastra included a section on metal extraction and alloying, and later Sanskrit documents described techniques to achieve metal purity. (South Asian History Project, 2002a)
This may explain the extraordinary advances of Indian iron casting techniques. Indian iron was rust-proof well before 400 AD, as demonstrated by the iron pillar of Delhi. This seven metre tall monument has been exposed to monsoonal rain since it was erected some 1600 years ago and has shown so little sign of rust that the inscriptions on it are still legible.
By the 12th century Indian architects used iron girders of dimensions that Europeans could not produce before the late 19th century. A temple built in Puri contains 239 iron beams, one of them longer than 10 m. (South Asian History Project, 2002a)
More important for medieval armies was the development of tempered steel. European iron was of the wrought-iron or mild steel type. It was useful for farm implements but was too soft to be of use for hand weapons. Indian furnaces applied the Chinese method to work the iron into steel by forging and hammering it to include carbon in the mixture, which turned the iron into tempered steel.
Swords made from tempered steel kept their shape and sharpness and were highly prized and expensive trade items. During the entire Middle Ages China, India and Persia were the suppliers of swords to the European knights.
The use of technology in the state factories provided a stabilizing element, but as in other feudal societies technological progress and innovation in India depended much on the interest of individual rulers. Raja Bhoja, ruler of Dhar-Malwa during 1018 - 1060, provided a strong stimulus to civil engineering. An engineer and scholar himself, he designed Bhojsagar, an immense irrigation system based on an artificial lake, and established a university in Dhar. In his work Somarangana Sutradhara he included a chapter on principles of town planning and provided detailed maps of his country's road system.
In the area of social needs Indian inventions responded to the conditions of hot summer climates. The Arthasastra mentioned a system of air conditioning based on a revolving water spray, and Indian textiles such as muslin became world-famous for their loftiness. Natural and artificial dyes were developed into colour-fast applications and provided one of the major exports to Rome. India's textile manufacturing industry was the technological world leader until the arrival of the colonial powers, and the European textile machines of the early industrial age were based on the best hand-operated machines of India.
As in all early societies science in India was initially inseparable from religion, so the starting point for a discussion of Indian science is Indian religion.
Nothing is known about the religion of the Indus civilization. When the Aryans arrived around 1500 BC they brought with them Vedism, which revolved around a cult of fire sacrifice. Its teachings were collected in the Vedas.
Vedism knew many gods and goddesses but contained also the idea of a supreme power. This latter aspect was emphasized in Brahmanism, which was practiced by the Brahmans, the highest and most powerful caste of the Ganges civilization. Being promoted by the ruling class, Brahmanism stressed the importance of being content with one's caste status and one's position in the world; the purpose of ritual sacrifice was to make a contribution to the welfare of the transcendental order and at the same time promote one's own interests.
Hinduism, the main religion of today's India, emerged from Brahmanism at about the same time when Christianity evolved. While it maintained the multitude of the Vedic gods it stressed the importance of Vishnu, a god of extension and pervasiveness, and Siva, the creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe. The Vishnu and Siva cults, which are still the two main forms of Hinduism today, replaced sacrifice by worship of god's image and deep devotion.
The core of all varieties of Hinduism was and remains the belief in an eternal principle known as brahman, not created but infinite, all-embracing and the sole permanent reality. Brahman causes the universe and all beings to evolve from itself and is itself found in all things and living creatures.
As the All, the Being, the Self of living beings and the re-absorber of everything, brahman is impersonal and without attributes. (It can take the appearance of a god, usually Vishnu or Siva.) Hinduism is then the permanent search for the ultimate reality, the essence of the One that is the All.
Because brahman is in all things, Indian religion includes the principle of non-injury (ahimsa), or more accurately the absence of desire to harm. The principle was honoured to various degrees during India's history (and is ignored by a large part of present-day Hinduism) and fostered a culture of tolerance towards other religious beliefs. This allowed Buddhism and Jainism to develop alongside Hinduism during the 6th century BC, a time when large centres of learning sprang up. The great monastic centre of Nalanda had lecture halls and residential compounds of such an extent that it was often described as a university.
The great wisdom of Indian thinking becomes apparent when we look at the periods of peace and social progress in India's history. For over 1800 years these periods were characterized by tolerance of all religions and beliefs. Whether it was the Buddhist of the Lesser Vehicle Asoka, the Buddhist of the Greater Vehicle Kaniska, the Hindu Candra Gupta II or the Muslim Akbar, all four rulers practiced tolerance and encouraged all religions. Periods of religious persecution such as the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb were invariably periods of political difficulties, when the ruling class turned to religion as an instrument to defend its power.
The intellectual tolerance of early Indian society and religion led to early development of philosophy. Unlike Greek philosophy Indian philosophy did not establish itself independent of or in opposition to religion. Its early rise meant that it took the form of alternative interpretations of the Vedas. Six orthodox schools, or systems of thought, were recognized besides Buddhism and Jainism, which are regarded as unorthodox schools:
Vedanta, the only surviving orthodox school, is a further elaboration of the Vedas and has become fully integrated into the Hindu religion. Its survival over all other schools means that today's Hindu tradition is dominated by religious ideas and has lost its emphasis on philosophy of nature and tolerance towards other religions.
In a history of science context the important orthodox schools are the Nyaya and the Vaisheshika schools. Both were a philosophy as well as a religion. They took the search for ultimate reality to a level that contained strong elements of the scientific method and can therefore be considered as the emergence of scientific thought in India. This brought them close to each other, and from the 10th century the two schools could be regarded as one.
There were, however, philosophers well before the Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools who had a rationalist approach to the world. They were known as the Carvaka or Lokayata ("The Worldly Ones"). The Lokayata rejected the idea of god and the Vedas and ridiculed the Brahman priests in their Savradarshana Samgraha:
The Lokayata were uncompromising materialists. They insisted that all knowledge has to be based on perception and reasoning. They considered consciousness as emerging from the developing living body and disappearing at death. Their ideas were probably never accepted by the majority of the population, but the great length to which Buddhist and orthodox Hindu philosophical texts go to refute them indicates that they must have been quite influential at some time. As late as in the 7th century AD the Chinese monk Hsüan-tsang, who as we shall see in the next lecture brought Buddhism to China, wrote in his travel report that the merchants in Benaras were mostly "unbelievers."
The Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools were not atheist, but they expanded the scientific way of thinking greatly, to the extent that the 1400 years from 1000 BC to 400 AD have become known as India's rationalistic period.
A common position that can be found in nearly all Indian thought is the notion that the world consists of atoms that aggregate together in different combinations to produce the objects perceived by people. The Vaisheshika school expanded this concept by distinguishing Substance, Quality and Action:
Much effort went into the clarification of cause and effect and the relationship between objects. The Vaisheshikas distinguished four categories of "non-existence:"
The Nyaya school built on Vaisheshika philosophy and expanded it into a search for the correct scientific method: How can perception be distinguished from dreams and hallucinations? How is a hypothesis evaluated? What is the correct way of inference? What constitutes a scientific proof?
Nyaya philosophy developed a methodology of ascertaining the truth. (South Asian History Project, 2002c) It consisted of proposition, ascertainment of facts through perception, inference or induction, and examination and verification.
The Vaisheshika theory of cause and effect was expanded in Nyaya thought by insisting that an effect cannot exist before its cause. It distinguished three kinds of causes:
According to Nyaya thought atoms and souls are the eternal Substance, and as a consequence God cannot be the material cause of the universe; but God is the efficient cause for the universe to exist. This is the point of contact with the more theological Hindu philosophies such as Samkhya-Yoga and Vedanta, which nevertheless disagree on the role of God, who they place above everything else. In its theoretical structure the Nyaya system is very close to modern logic.
India's rationalistic period began earlier and lasted longer than the era of the new Greek science. There was contact between the two civilizations; Megasthenes, ambassador of king Seleucus I, one of the successors to Alexander the Great, to the court of Candra Gupta at about 300 BC, had the highest praise for Indian achievements in his diplomatic reports. But the full appraisal of India's contribution to science had to wait until the arrival of Islam.
Our discussion of Indian philosophy had to restrict itself to the points that are relevant to the history of science. What is clear, however, is the close connection and interaction between philosophy and religion, the breadth of philosophical thought, and the long continuous tradition of a rationalist attitude to nature.
One of the striking aspects of Indian science is the systematic approach in which it tried to explain as many phenomena as possible on the basis of particle physics. Atomic and molecular theories were not restricted to concepts of atomic clusters. Chemical changes observed during the heating process were interpreted as changes in the molecular groupings.
Some scientists even explained light as an emission of particles. The early philosophers explained vision through the reflection of light that was emitted from the eye (the same concept taught by Greek science), but already in the 1st century AD Susruta stated that vision is caused by light being received by the retina of the eye. In the 6th century Varahamihira stated that reflection is caused by the back-scattering of particles and explained refraction (the change of direction of a light ray as it moves from one medium into another) by the ability of the particles to penetrate inner spaces of the material, much like fluids that move through porous objects. (South Asian History Project, 2002b)
One might be tempted to say that Indian physics of antiquity and the Middle Ages was closer to what we consider the correct description of nature than Greek physics. (The idea of atoms occurred to the Greek, but it remained peripheral to the general development, and there was no major attempt to expand it into optics and thermodynamics.) Such assessment would, however, be without foundation. Both the ancient Greek civilization and the early Indian civilization had no means to experimentally test the assertion that the world is made up of atoms. That the Indians preferred atoms to the Greek "infinite" that permeates everything may be more accidental than superior insight.
How, then, should we judge the accomplishments of Indian science? When we discussed the consequences of the rise of Christianity for scientific thought in Lecture 12 we said that the great Greek scientists are rightly admired not for their concepts of nature (which were mostly wrong) but for their attitude to the study of nature. There is no doubt that the attitude of Indian science to the study of nature was at least as advanced as that of classical Greece.
That Indian science was at par with classical Greek science is also demonstrated by the fact that many of the "classical" problems studied by Greek science were also treated by Indian scientists. Aryabhata described the Earth as a revolving sphere that rotates around the Sun in the 5th century. Clear evidence of contact with Greek science is found in the work of Varahamihira, whose Pañca-siddhantika ("Five Treatises") contain a description of Greek astronomy. Brahmagupta estimated the Earth's circumference during the 7th century.
But the one innovation that reserves Indian science its place in history was the invention of the place-value number system. The decimal system had been known already in the Indus civilization, where sets of weights in units of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 had been in use. The remarkable rigour of Indian philosophy and logic provided without doubt the conditions for the important step to get away from the representation of numbers as multiples of objects (sticks, tokens, pebbles etc.) and embrace the idea of the numeral as an abstract concept. It is such a groundbreaking achievement that we rightly spent an entire lecture on it (see Lecture 6).
The highest development of Indian science was reached in the works of Bhaskara, who was the first to make full use of the advantages of the Indian number system for the solution of physical problems. In his discussion of the laws of motion he introduced quantitative assessment by using the equation
v = d / t
to describe the velocity v of an object in steady motion as covered distance d divided by elapsed time t.
Shortly after Bhaskara's death much of India came under Muslim control. This opened another chapter in the history of science, to which we shall turn in Lecture 16.
South Asian History Project (2002a) Technological discoveries and applications in India. http://india resource.tripod.com/technology.htm, last update 11 February 2002.
South Asian History Project (2002b) History of the Physical Sciences in India. http://india resource.tripod.com/physics.htm, last update 11 February 2002.
South Asian History Project (2002c) Philosophical development from Upanishadic Metaphysics to Scientific Realism. http://india resource.tripod.com/upanishad.htm, last update 22 May 2002.
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