India is an ancient country which has rich history and heritage, advanced culture and ancient techniques, whose growth has been a result of some incredible ancient technology and engineering during that period.
For over 10,000 years, the Indian civilizations blossomed and were probably one of the richest countries in the entire world. India’s rich history is unbelievable and surprising even today. In that way, having such a rich history and culture, there are a lot of interesting facts from the ancient history of this country.
Here are 20 interesting facts about India:
1. The atomic theory has been developed by Acharya Kanad in ancient India, who already talked about the idea of anu or atom, which is an indestructible particle of the matter more than 2600 years ago.
2. Fire bacteria have recently been stated by modern science as something to be true who were before that saying that no life can exist in fire. It gave them the base for the sterilization. However, Vedas claim that life exists everywhere, so life in a fire is a great possibility. It was discovered that bacteria might survive in the fire, called fire bacteria.
3. Maharshi Bhardwaj wrote Vymaanika-Shaastra, which has been discovered in one Indian temple. The book has been written 400 BC, and it was about the operation of ancient vimanas, and how they steered, propelled, or how they took precautions for some longer fights, how they protected airships from lightning and storms, how they switched the drive to solar energy or other free energy sources. Those days, the vimanas took off vertically, and Bhardwaj talks about at least 70 authorities and about ten experts of air travel.
4. Bhaskaracharya has calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the Sun about hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. According to the 5thcentury, the time taken by earth to orbit the Sun: 365.258756484 days.
5. Vasco da Gama was considered the one that has the biggest ship available in Europe. After that, he met one man, a Gujarati called Kanha, who was a trader and who had 12 times the ship of Vasco da Gama. The story was also mentioned in the own journal of Vasco da Hama, which is in Lisbon nowadays.
6. The ancient Indians from the Indus Valley were the first ones that made buttons and step-well.
7. Some type of ancient ultrasound machines, in the Shrimad Bhagavatam, the 30thchapter, describes how the embryo was growing in the womb of the mother. The description was unbelievably similar to the modern descriptions found in some modern textbooks.
8. India was the inventor of the Number System. Zero has been invented by Aryabhatta.
9. Trigonometry, algebra, and calculus also come from India. Quadratic equations were written by Sridharacharya somewhere in the 11thcentury.
10. Yoga is the mental, spiritual and physical practice which comes from India and has existed for more than 5,000. Patanjali, who is the father of Yoga, is the person that spread this global practice.
11. The first university in the world has been established in Takshashila in 700BC. About 10,500 students from around the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda has been built in the 4thcentury BC, and it was another great achievement of ancient India in the education field.
12. Navigation was also born in the river Sindhu about 6000 years ago. The word navigation itself is derived from the Sanskrit word navigatih. Also, the word navy is derived from the Sanskrit ‘nou.’
13. The value of Pi was calculated for the first time by Budhayana, and he has explained the concept of what is, in fact, known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He was the discoverer of this during the 6thcentury long before the European mathematicians.
14. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation were also built on the part of Saurashtra.
15. According to Saka King Rudradamen I of 150 CE, one beautiful lake called Sudarshana, has been constructed on the hills of Raivataka at the time of Chandragupta Maurya.
16. Chess is a board game which is invented in India too. It was named Shataranja or AshtaPada.
17. The four religions which were born in India, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Sikhism are followed by about 25% of the population in the world.
18. The place value system, the decimal system has been developed in India in 100BC.
19. The Indus Valley Civilization already knew the process of zinc extraction by distillation from zinc ore as early as the 10thcentury BC. India was able to remove zinc from zinc-core for about 4 thousand years. They also knew some ways of extracting zinc using the distillation process.
20. The largest numbers that the Greeks and Romans utilized were 106 whereas Hindus utilized numbers as big as 10^53, which is 10 to the power of 53, with specific names as early as 5000 BCE during the Vedic period.
