IN CELEBRATION OF 74TH INDEPENDENCE DAY INDIA: THE LAND OF CREATIVITY

Since time
immemorial, the land of India has been the loving land of the gods. All avataras,
vibhutis, seers and sages take birth here time and again. The history of
India is overflowing with the stories of such personalities. This has been a
blessed land where one chooses to be born again and again.

‘Far better it is
to win a few moments of life in Bharata than several ages of life in
these celestial regions; in that sacred land, heroic souls can achieve in a
moment the state of fearlessness in God by renouncing in Him all actions done
by their perishable bodies.’ Thus says the Bhagavata Purana, 5.19.21-23.

Indeed, this is the
land which has been the land of the seekers of the Truth, Light and Wisdom; a
land in which a dynamic spirituality holds the key to everything pertaining to
life and the world. This dynamic spirituality has given much strength to the
race that has been able to sustain its creative energy from time immemorial and
has been able to contribute positively towards the progressive evolution of
humanity. India in this sense is not just a loving land of the gods, but a land
of immense creativity.

The seers and sages
of ancient India had an immense scientific temperament. The quest was to find
out the truth of everything, but their method was very different from the ways
and methods of modern science. They did not view science as a test-tube culture
alone, but applied it to every aspect of life. They held a holistic view of
everything. They did not treat mathematics and poetry as two unrelated
subjects. This integrated vision of the seers and sages could create such a
great foundation that not only enriched life, but also gave strength to sustain
the creative energy uninterruptedly.

‘For three
thousand years at least – it is indeed much longer – she has been creating abundantly
and incessantly, lavishly, with an inexhaustible many-sidedness, republics and
kingdoms and empires, philosophies and cosmogonies and sciences and creeds and
arts and poems and all kinds of monuments, palaces and temples and public
works, communities and societies and religious orders, laws and codes and
rituals, physical sciences, psychic sciences, systems of Yoga, systems of
politics and administration, arts spiritual, arts worldly, trades, industries,
fine crafts – the list is endless and in each item there is almost a plethora
of activity. She creates and creates and is not satisfied and is not tired…’

This is what Sri
Aurobindo writes about the prolific creativity of our country in his book, The
Renaissance in India.

There has been no
branch of human knowledge in which India has not contributed. Most of the
discoveries for which we give credit to European scientists were well known to
ancient Indian sages.

They had the
knowledge of the science of Architecture based on which they could build cities
according to well-laid-out plans, roads with calculated widths, drains with
measured gradients, granaries with ventilation, baths constructed according to
angles of precision and platforms built to protect from the onslaught of
floods.

Some of the notable
ancient writings on Architecture include: Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira
(6^th century), Samarangana Sutradhara of King Bhoja (11^th
century), Manushyalaya Chandrika of Thirumangalath Neelakanthan
Musath (16^th century), Mayamata (11^th century), Silparatna
of Srikumar (16^th century), Aparjita-Prccha of
Bhuvanadavacharya, Agastya-Sakalahikara of Agastya and Manasara
Shilpa Shastra of Manasara.

The science of
Medicine was well advanced compared to the system of medicine that existed in
the other parts of the globe during the time when there lived Acharya Sushruta
(Sushruta Samhita, between 6^th – 12^th century
BCE), Acharya Charaka (Charaka Samhita, between 6^th – 12^th
century BCE) and Acharya Vagbhata (Astangahrdayasamhita, 6^th
century CE). Sage Divodasa Dhanwantari developed the school of surgery. Rishi
Kashyap developed the specialised fields of paediatrics and gynaecology. Sage
Atreya classified the principles of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology,
embryology, blood circulation and much more. Acharya Sushruta is known as the ‘Father of
surgery’. Even modern science recognises India as the first country to develop
and use rhinoplasty (developed by Sushruta). Sushruta worked with 125 kinds of
surgical instruments, which included scalpels, lancets, needles, catheters,
rectal speculums, mostly conceived from jaws of animals and birds to obtain the
necessary grips. He also defined various methods of stitching: the use of
horse’s hair, fine thread, fibres of bark, goat’s guts and ants’ heads.

The way plants were
identified and classified shows the immense scientific temperament of the
ancient seers and sages. They not only made a scientific and systematic
classification of the plants but could discover the exact properties of
hundreds of plants without any sophisticated laboratory tools.

In ancient India
there was also the science of Metallurgy which produced amazing results. With
the knowledge of this, the people could make such minute steatite beads that
300 would weigh only one gram and these they would adorn on beautiful necks. Rasaratnakara
of Nagarjuna (2^nd century CE), Rasarnava (12^th
century CE), Rasaratnasamuccaya (13^th to 14^th
century CE), Rasendra Sara Samgraha (9^th century CE) are some
of the important works in which one finds the science of Metallurgy.

The credit of
discovery of aviation technology goes to Bharadwaja. His Yantra Sarvasva
covers astonishing discoveries in aviation and space sciences, and flying machines.

Sage Kanada (circa
600 BCE) is recognised as the founder of Atomic theory who classified all the
objects of creation into nine elements (earth, water, light or fire, wind,
ether, time, space, mind and soul). He stated that every object in creation is
made of atoms that in turn connect with each other to form molecules.

In the field of
Chemistry alchemical metals were developed for medicinal use by sage Nagarjuna.
His book Rasa Ratnakara is a fine specimen of India’s contribution to
Chemistry. The knowledge of baking of the earth for changing the soft mud to
hard clay and then painting the clay with colours to make beautiful pots, etc.
was very well known to the people of India.

In the field of
Astronomy and Astrology, India was in a very advanced position. It was possible
for the ancient Indian seers and sages to measure the sky at angles of 30
degrees and the position of stars as they lay randomly scattered in depthless
vistas. Indians were the first in the world to have done this and the Greeks arrived
only 2,000 years later.

Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata (5^th to 6^th century CE), Panchasiddhantika,
Brihat-Samhita, Brihat-Jataka and Laghu Jataka of Varahamihira (6^th
century CE), Brahmasphutasiddhanta of Brahmagupta (6^th to 7^th
century CE) are some of the notable texts on Astronomy and Astrology.

The list of the
discoveries by the ancient Indian seers and sages is truly long. There has been
no branch of science in which India has not made its own contribution. One can
keep exploring the immense treasures available in the vast gamut of Sanskrit
literature, many published and many more yet to see the light of day.

The need of the
time is to awaken to the spirit of India and develop a deep sense of Love for
our Motherland, a thirst for the knowledge of her past glories, a burning
aspiration to serve her – this is all that we need to do for our country.

But at the same
time we must remember that we are not expected to make a return to the past,
but to take the glories of the past and map them to the present conditions with
the aim of creating a bright future. Our aim must be the future – the past is
the foundation and the present is the material.

In conclusion, I
present a wonderful passage from the writings of Sri Aurobindo:

‘Not only was India
in the first rank in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, surgery, all
the branches of physical knowledge which were practiced in ancient times, but
she was, along with the Greeks, the teacher of the Arabs from whom Europe
recovered the lost habit of scientific enquiry and got the basis from which
modern science started. In many directions India had the priority of discovery
– to take only two striking examples among a multitude, the decimal notation in
mathematics or the perception that the earth is a moving body in Astronomy, – calaa
prithvi sthiraa bhaati, the earth moves and only appears to be still, said
the Indian astronomer many centuries before Galileo. This great development
would hardly have been possible in a nation whose thinkers and men of learning
were led by its metaphysical tendencies to turn away from the study of nature.
A remarkable feature of the Indian mind was a close attention to the things of
life, a disposition to observe minutely its salient facts, to systematise and
to found in each department of it a science, Shastra, well-founded scheme and
rule. That is at least a good beginning of the scientific tendency and not the
sign of a culture capable only of unsubstantial metaphysics.’ (Sri Aurobindo, CWSA,
Vol.20, pp. 123–124.)

(The author is
the Director of Sri Aurobindo Foundation for Indian Culture, SAFIC, Sri
Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry. He is a well-known Sanskrit scholar and was
awarded the Maharshi Badrayan Vyas Award for Sanskrit in 2012 by the President
of India. Through his pioneering work through Vande Matram Library Trust, an
open-source volunteer-driven project, he has made available authentic English
translations of timeless Sanskrit scriptures of India.)