[HN Gopher] The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the W...
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The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World
Author : Thevet
Score : 115 points
Date : 2024-09-11 05:28 UTC (17 hours ago)
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| mahatofu wrote:
| Did not expect to see this here. But I have been looking forward
| to this book for a while. I'm a big fan of William Darlymple. The
| Anarchy is my favorite of his.
| Fluorescence wrote:
| I picked it up from the title alone because I was on a medieval
| history kick and I unreasonably expected it to be about... "The
| Anarchy"... you know, the period of history that actually goes
| by that name... but no. I was surprised and disappointed to
| find it was about The East India Company which I didn't have
| much of a hankering after. I still feel cheated!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy
| d13 wrote:
| And still, it's one of the greatest works of popular history
| ever written.
| sidmitra wrote:
| https://archive.ph/kcVok
| vr46 wrote:
| Very good writer, but he personally wound me up with his public
| "Great Escape" from India during the pandemic and laid himself
| open to the criticism that followed, of being a fairweather
| friend.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| What exactly is the criticism here? He didn't strand himself in
| a particular densely populated foreign country while COVID
| lockdowns were happening across the world? He would be a better
| friend to India if he stayed there, contracted COVID, and put
| more strain on their healthcare system to the detriment of
| actual citizens?
| vr46 wrote:
| His words, in the context of Indian, Britishness,
| colonialism, his own writing and the suffering of those he
| had left behind - he himself apologised for the message
| "being tone deaf & reeking with privilege" and I think it was
| quite reasonable that people were irritated by his posts of
| palm trees and sunny beaches while so few others had the
| choice.
|
| And secondly, he lives there, it was not a "foreign" country
| and he was not "stranded". He lives there.
| 1024core wrote:
| > The great mathematician Aryabhata (476-550), in his masterwork
| composed when he was only 23, covers square and cube roots, the
| properties of circles and triangles, algebra, quadratic equations
| and sines, and contains a decent approximation of the value of pi
| at 3.1416.
|
| TIL...
| canfakt wrote:
| The man was certified genius, here are some more of his
| contributions to the world
|
| - Invention of Zero - Decimal Place-Value System - Astronomical
| Calculations - Understanding of Negative Numbers
|
| here is a good YouTube video on this subject
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgjcy04PDRM
|
| While we praise Aryabhatta man, i would like to shed some
| lights on Madhava of Sangamagrama c. 1340 - c. 1425 CE from
| India who less well known
|
| Key Contributions
|
| Infinite Series and Trigonometry Discovered power series
| expansions for trigonometric functions: Madhava's Sine Series:
| Infinite series representation for the sine function. Madhava's
| Cosine Series: Infinite series representation for the cosine
| function. Madhava-Gregory Series: Series for the arctangent
| function, predating James Gregory by over 200 years.
|
| Calculus and Mathematical Analysis Laid early foundations of
| calculus through: 200 years before Newton or leibniz Methods of
| term-by-term integration and iterative techniques for solving
| transcendental equations. Concepts related to the area under
| curves, similar to integral calculus. Introduction of
| convergence tests for infinite series. Creation of
| trigonometric tables with accurate sine and cosine values.
|
| The Jesuit missionaries in India played a crucial role in the
| transmission of advanced Indian mathematical and astronomical
| knowledge to Europe by learning local languages, collaborating
| with local scholars, and documenting key works, thereby
| significantly influencing the development of mathematics in the
| West.
| fuzztester wrote:
| >contains a decent approximation of the value of pi at 3.1416.
|
| I read this somewhere earlier, in some article about the
| history of mathematics, maybe Indian, Chinese, or both:
|
| Take the number 113355 (easy to remember). Split it down the
| middle to get 113 and 355. Divide the latter by the former.
| E.g. in the Python shell:
|
| > print (355/113)
|
| Result:
|
| 3.1415929203539825
|
| which is a slightly closer approximation to pi than 3.1416.
| pablobaz wrote:
| That's nice! Another one is remembering the phrase: Can I
| have a large container of coffee please sir.
| fuzztester wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_mathematician...
| echelon_musk wrote:
| The Guardian also published a promotional piece for this book if
| you can't get past the paywall of TFA.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/01/hidden...
| d13 wrote:
| I'm reading this right now, and it's excellent. Some amazing
| stories in there, like that of Wu Zetian, the real life Mother of
| Dragons:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Zetian
| vjust wrote:
| I guess the author, a historian, writes about ancient Indian
| mathematical contributions (a science of which he has no
| expertise presumably). These historical references I have learnt
| in various mathematical texts (the story of Fibonacci and al
| khwarizmi) - the journey across multiple centuries, of these
| innovations made by Aryabhata or Brahmagupta.
|
| As an Indian, and as a math aficionado (and degree holder) - I
| wonder, that was about 1500 years ago. In that era, a discovery
| (as you can read it) took 500 years to move from Arabia to
| Europe, thanks to Fibonacci's writing. Contrast it to today's
| instant dissemination of information and breakthroughs. Yes those
| were the glory days of Indian civilization. We have a Ramanujan
| every 100 years in India. Breakthrough ideas (earthshaking ones
| like the concept of 0) emerging out of India are few and far
| between. Around 1000 years ago, the fountain of (world-changing)
| creativity and ideas seems to have dried up, as far as India is
| concerned. Maybe it was the invaders , easy to blame everything
| on outsiders, though - what is India today was 600 or 400 odd
| kingdoms, frequently warring each other - so turmoil was always
| there. And if you were a reclusive monk in a forest with a bunch
| of students, no Brit or Mughal dude was stopping you from
| innovating. So, the big question is - can we explain why genius
| ideas stopped (without blaming British, or Mughals etc) - because
| thanks to Indian's instincts, the first step is to blame the
| Brits/Mughals , so problem solved, proved, ostrich is happy in
| the sand.
|
| I can only indulge in thought exercises , like : Aryabhata and
| Brahmagupta didn't have computers, didn't even have pencil and
| paper. They just sat there and thought. For months, or years. Or
| maybe they were walking. And gazed at the stars and observed and
| observed. And most likely, and importantly debated orally :
| endlessly with their teachers (in a monastery type place class
| sizes were small), peers- I believe this was a time in India's
| cultural history when debating, and disagreeing were positive
| things. In modern India, intellectualism has taken a back seat.
| To disagree is to be unpatriotic even. (Nalanda University comes
| to mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda_mahavihara - not
| its modernized recreation which is likely going to be hardly
| attempting to break the mold). WhatsApp - the destroyer of brain
| cells by atrophy , has a grip on every mind.
|
| We read about the great Greek debates. We see videos of Tibetan
| buddhist monks practice debating in a monastery. Surely this kind
| of debating, face-to-face is missing in today's world (without
| getting angry) - this is the equivalent of the modern cafe in
| Paris or Vienna, with Godel and co. debating . This debating
| society , was Nalanda back a thousand years until invaders burnt
| every manuscript down and slaughtered every monk almost - except
| the manuscripts the Chinese monks took back to the Emperor in
| China - they are the only written records of life that remain,
| that and some arabic ones.
|
| Yet I hope new lotuses will bloom from India - we can never
| predict where the next genius or breakthrough idea will emerge
| from - why not Africa?
| d13 wrote:
| They did have ink and papyrus.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| The Manusmriti - if you ignore the social aspects of it has a
| calculation for the age of the universe. The very first chapter
| has it. I think it computes to about 12 billion years - close
| to what modern science brings it out to be.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I think it's just that industrialization, the computer, and the
| Internet were such massive juice that even if you have a
| brilliant mind it doesn't matter because the guy with that tool
| can take anything you think of and make it better. Each of
| these is a step up so huge that no mind can match it. So you
| have to match the tool first before the minds start mattering.
| aanet wrote:
| William Dalrymple is one of the finest historians and authors who
| has previously brought to life the story of East India Company
| and how it led to British India. In this book, he focuses on,
| among other things, how Buddhism spread all over.
|
| It's a fascinating topic. He also has a very successful podcast
| [1][2] -- with his co-host Anita Anand -- The Empire Podcast,
| which chronicles the rise and fall of empires. Highly
| educational, not to mention entertaining.
|
| Recommended!!
|
| [1] Empire Podcast - Apple -
| https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/empire/id1639561921 [2] On
| Spotify -
| https://open.spotify.com/show/0sBh58hSTReUQiK4axYUVx?si=45f5...
| gourabmi wrote:
| I second the podcast recommendation. Empire pod has been truly
| worth every bit of the time. I am currently on the episode
| about History of coffee - ethiopia, ottoman turks etc.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Anyone interested in Indian history and its interaction with the
| world should check out the Odd Compass channel on YouTube
| (https://www.youtube.com/@OddCompass) - it's really well done,
| entertaining and just makes you appreciate the world a little
| more - especially how interconnected we've all been, especially
| through trade.
| sokz wrote:
| It's a fine surprise that I just ordered the book independently
| and then discovered the podcast and found the book being
| discussed on HN all in the same day. Pretty nice coincidence.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| I've been fascinated with Indian history (mostly for selfish
| reasons to understand my lineage). My oversimplified summary has
| been, India has had 3 major golden ages in its history.
|
| The earliest was during the Mauryan Period. This is the age
| Dalrymple is talking about, the time of Aryabhatta, the
| popularization of Buddhism, arguably the time when most of the
| Indian epics were written (dating them has become notoriously
| political to the point that discerning the truth is hard now).
| This is the age Indian nationalists stress on, and the left wing
| tries to ignore. This age declines because the empire got too
| big, lost control and slowly disintegrated.
|
| The second age was during the Islamic golden age for India which
| the right tries to ignore and left stress on. My general sense is
| that there was a golden age of architecture, poetry and arts and
| probably not so much in Science. The Taj Mahal for instance was
| built during this time. This age declined mostly due to wars, the
| Mughal rulers were never successful in fully unifying India, even
| to the extent the Mauryans did. They fought consistent wars
| against pockets of resistance in the South, and towards the end
| began losing these wildly expensive wars (leading to a brief
| reign by Shivaji)
|
| The third golden age which no one wants to admit (left or right)
| is the British Golden age. There really was a renaissance in
| Indian thought in arts, science during British rule. This was
| when Indian history was "rediscovered", first by British
| orientalists and then by mostly Indian Bengalis. CV Raman won the
| Nobel prize in science, Tagore won the Nobel prize in literature,
| Ramanujan etc, the names are numerous. The British rule also was
| the largest and most stable unification of India till the modern
| times. After 1850s there were almost no pockets of military
| resistance against the British rule. The British age declined
| with WW1 and WW2, and ended with Indian independence.
|
| Post independence was not a smooth going party. If you came to
| India during 1980s, you could argue independence had been a
| disaster with everything getting worse post independence. But
| since 1990s economic liberalization India has a new ish golden
| age with unique characteristics. Who knows how long this will
| continue and when it will inevitably end
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| What do you think about Gupta india
| Ballu wrote:
| You missed Gupta.. but I too consider Islamic/Mighal as well as
| British time too Golden period from world progress perspective.
| d13 wrote:
| And, it should be on track to become the world's largest
| economy by 2075 - which historically it and China always have
| been.
| vvrm wrote:
| > CV Raman won the Nobel prize in science, Tagore won the Nobel
| prize in literature, Ramanujan etc, the names are numerous.
|
| So golden age of India was when the country with a seventh of
| the world's population won 2 nobel prizes over 5 decades ?
|
| > The British rule also was the largest and most stable
| unification of India till the modern times. After 1850s there
| were almost no pockets of military resistance against the
| British rule.
|
| Mughal and Gupta empires lasted over 3 centuries, Mauryan
| empire a little under 1.5 centuries. By comparison, east india
| company rule lasted a century and the British crown's rule less
| than that. So again completely incorrect.
|
| > The third golden age which no one wants to admit (left or
| right) is the British Golden age.
|
| There's your hint: if people on both sides of the aisle don't
| "want to admit" something, maybe it doesn't make sense. Not to
| mention a slap in the face of billions of Indians.
|
| > The British age declined with WW1 and WW2, and ended with
| Indian independence.
|
| Thank god for that decline, otherwise Indian taxpayers would
| have been funding Brexit and the crumbling British economy
| right now.
|
| > My oversimplified summary has been
|
| This is not a summary, it's a lazy opinion backed by little
| research.
| achierius wrote:
| >Mauryan empire a little under 1.5 centuries. By comparison,
| east india company rule lasted a century and the British
| crown's rule less than that This is a very dishonest way to
| obscure the actual facts.
|
| Direct rule from Britain lasted for almost 90 years: 1858 to
| 1947. Even by your numbers then, that's 190 years: longer
| than the Mauryan empire's whole lifespan, and much closer to
| that of the Mughals. From there the question remains whether
| it's the longest "unification", and this mostly comes down to
| exactly when each of the aforementioned empires could be
| considered to have "unified" India.
|
| By any definition the Mughals united the subcontinent by
| 1707AD at the latest: but by 1751, less than fifty years on,
| their effective domain had declined to a few pockets in
| Rajputana and Bengal.
|
| The Guptan Empire on the other hand, while certainly a key
| predecessor to later Indian states and a major unifying force
| in the northern half of the subcontinent, never conquered the
| southern half -- what is today Karnakata, Kerala, and Tamil
| Nadu never entered their control. The closest they got was
| ~420AD after the south-eastern conquests of Chandragupta II,
| but again within fifty years they again lost control of
| today's Orissa, and even lost large swathes of north+western
| India to invasions from the steppe.
|
| You call GP's post "a lazy opinion backed by little
| research", but when you dig into the facts I can't see how
| you could argue that his claim is incorrect. The British Raj
| alone seems to qualify as the longest-lasting unification of
| India before the modern Indian state, and if you include any
| part of the EIC's rule then it's indisputably so.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I hear what you're saying, but this idea of a golden age under
| rule by some outside force is often the positive take about
| many historical periods where someone who committed significant
| crimes (invasions, genocides, etc) is then praised hundreds of
| years later because of the positive effect they had for the
| economy or whatever. Julius Caesar is one such example that
| comes to mind.
|
| But I feel that approach sometimes discounts what the country
| and its people could have achieved on their own if they were
| not invaded. For example, the Taj Mahal is just one building in
| India. There are lots of other structures that exist that were
| not built under rule from outside invaders, but they never get
| attention (at least I've not heard of them). With Britain - you
| mentioned that they unified India and brought stability but how
| true is that if you compare it to the period of India much
| earlier? India was rocked by Islamic invasions (which led to
| the Mughal period) and colonized by those Islamic rulers for
| hundreds of years. That's what the European colonizers took
| over. Is that really a fair period to compare against? India
| basically spent a millennium ruled by one outside genocidal
| invader or the other. I am guessing the period before that was
| more peaceful and not in need of some outside unifying force to
| feel 'stable'.
| nextos wrote:
| I don't think British India can be described as a Golden Age,
| when it was arguably the biggest transfer of wealth in history.
| When the British started colonizing India, its share of the
| World GDP was approximately between 1/5 and 1/4. So it was a
| major player. When they left, GDP share was a mere 4/100. Under
| British rule, India experienced massive de-industrialization.
| For example, the UK disassembled most of the handloom industry.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Wow reading the comments here, there is so much in terms of
| invention and contribution that I wasn't taught (in American
| schools). Given the importance of some of these contributions, I
| feel a bit shocked at how much is left out of our education in
| America (and I assume Europe) about what other cultures have
| provided. India in particular feels like a blind spot - they're
| the largest country by population but also conspicuously missing.
| All you hear about is Gandhi, and even that is not covered well
| (in terms of the politics of colonization or the partition of
| India). It feels to me like it is purposeful - how else do you
| explain skipping out on all these math inventions that are
| critical to the modern world?
| d13 wrote:
| Not just that! For many hundreds of years there were over 250
| ships a year trading between India and Rome, and tariffs on
| that trade alone accounted for 25% of the Roman Empire's tax
| revenue. Among many other things, India fed the demand for
| transparent clothing, which was all the rage in the Roman
| Empire during that period.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Many things are not taught in school, because basic education
| is short, and a lot of it happens before people's cognitive
| abilities have fully developed. The average kid probably spends
| about a year learning about society and culture, and much of it
| must be devoted to topics that are relevant to daily life in
| their own society.
|
| Back in Finland some decades ago, there was pretty decent
| coverage of India in three topics: world religions and the
| history of religion; European explorers, colonialism, and
| imperialism; and "modern" history with Gandhi, Nehru, the
| partition, and the wars. There were also some passing mentions
| in other topics. Overall, we probably spent more time on Indian
| history than American history.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > and a lot of it happens before people's cognitive abilities
| have fully developed.
|
| This is sort of trivially true, in that there is generally
| literally no point at which a person's cognitive abilities
| are "fully developed" (cognitive abilities being non-uniform
| in development, and some aspects of cognitive ability tending
| to continue developing until very late in life, long after
| most of the rest have been declining for quite a long time.)
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(page generated 2024-09-11 23:00 UTC)