SLIDE 1: On February 2, 1835, British politician Thomas Babington Macaulay

circulated Minute on Education, a treatise that offered definitive reasons for why the
East India Company and the British government should spend money on the provision
of English language education, as well as the promotion of European learning,
especially the sciences, in India.

While The Minute acknowledged the historic role of Sanskrit and Arabic literature in

the Subcontinent, it also contended that they had limitations. “A single shelf of a good
European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia,”
Macaulay wrote in the Minute.

Depending on the reader’s perspective, these words show Macaulay either as an angel
or a villain in the shaping of the Subcontinent’s history.

A month after its circulation, the Minute became policy, when William Bentinck, the
governor general of India, signed the resolution. For Macaulay, this was a victory. He
had won against his detractors, especially the Orientalists – East India Company
officials, scholars, translators and collectors – who supported study and instruction in
India in Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian languages.

Macaulay vs. the Orientalists

The Orientalists had had reasons enough to hold out.

Warren Hastings, governor general of India in the 1770s, had always felt a need to
understand the subjects ruled by the East India Company, and for this reason alone, he
acknowledged the value of their ancient languages: Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic.

In the mid-1850s, Hume and Singh helped establish a localised three-tier system of
education – with schools at the village, town level and a central school in the district’s
main city, complete with library and museum for presentation of local artefacts. Funds
came from contributions from the local landed gentry (1% of the revenue from every
landholder). The subjects in these schools included English, Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit,
Arabic, Persian, mathematics, surveying, geography, history and natural science.

This initiative, however, ended with the revolt of 1857, resulting in an increasing
centralisation of education, and the implementation of British politician Charles
Wood’s dispatch of 1854 that introduced the three-tier educational system as we know
it today, with education in the native languages at the primary stages but an increasing
focus on English at the higher, especially at university, level. Literacy rates in India
remained poor, as determined by the Hunter Commission report of 1881. And as late
as 1941, the literate represented barely 16% of pre-independent India’s population.

SLIDE 1:
Keith15 who translated several Vedic texts working in the Colonial Office, was
derisive of the Hindu marriage ritual and commented “…the argument from the pole
star assumes an accuracy in the demands of the primitive Indian wedding ritual which
is wholly unnatural.” While criticizing the Úatapatha Brâhman.a text mentioning that
the Pleiades do not slip from the east he wrote “a passage which consists of
DHRUVA THE ANCIENT INDIAN POLE STAR 37 foolish reasons for preferring
one or other of the naks.atras; we are in the same region of popular belief as when in
the Sûtra literature the existence of Dhruva, a fixed polar star, is alleged.” He added a
foot note, as though not satisfied with his arguments (p 79); “The pole star, Dhruva,
appears in the Gr.hya Sûtras only.” Whitney and Keith were obviously ignorant of the
Taittirîya Âran. yaka text as the basis for the Vedic statements implying the existence
of Abhaya-Dhruva on the tail of the Draco and the Ekâgni text as the traceable Vedic
source for the Hindu marriage rites.

The Yajur-Veda also gave the first list of 27

nakṣatras or lunar mansions, that is, constellations
Slide 2

along
This life of the
yours path of are
which you theliving
moon on the
is not merely celestial
a piece sphere
of this entire existence,
but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be
surveyed in one single glance.

This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which
is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words
as "I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world."

More recently, Fritjof Capra explained that “Modern physics has shown that the
rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and
in the birth and death of all living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic
matter,” and that “For the modern physicists, then, Shiva’s dance is the dance of
subatomic matter.”
It is indeed as Capra concluded: “Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual
images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have
used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The
metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and
modern physics.”

Slide 3

One of the oldest civilizations in the world, the Indian civilization has a strong
tradition of science and technology. Ancient India was a land of sages and seers as
well as a land of scholars and scientists. Research has shown that from making the
best steel in the world to teaching the world to count, India was actively contributing
to the field of science and technology centuries long before modern laboratories were
set up.
“Technology” was not initially “the application of scientific knowledge to the
practical aims of human life. Rathe technology generally came first and science
followed.
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro are the best known sites from the Indus Valley
civilization (c 2500 - 1900 BCE).
Slide 4
Little needs to be written about the mathematical digit ‘zero’, one of the most
important inventions of all time. Mathematician Aryabhata was the first person to
create a symbol for zero and it was through his efforts that mathematical operations
like addition and subtraction started using the digit, zero. The concept of zero and its
integration into the place-value system also enabled one to write numbers, no matter
how large, by using only ten symbols.

India gave the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols –
the decimal system. In this system, each symbol received a value of position as well
as an absolute value. Due to the simplicity of the decimal notation, which facilitated
calculation, this system made the uses of arithmetic in practical inventions much
faster and easier.

Indians, as early as 500 BCE, had devised a system of different symbols for every
number from one to nine. This notation system was adopted by the Arabs who called
it the hind numerals. Centuries later, this notation system was adopted by the western
world who called them the Arabic numerals as it reached them through the Arab
traders.

The Fibonacci numbers and their sequence first appear in Indian mathematics
as mātrāmeru, mentioned by Pingala in connection with the Sanskrit tradition of
prosody. Later on, the methods for the formation of these numbers were given by
mathematicians Virahanka, Gopala and Hemacandra , much before the Italian
mathematician Fibonacci introduced the fascinating sequence to Western European
mathematics.

Binary numbers is the basic language in which computer programs are written. Binary
basically refers to a set of two numbers, 1 and 0, the combinations of which are called
bits and bytes. The binary number system was first described by the Vedic scholar
Pingala, in his book Chandahśāstra, which is the earliest known Sanskrit treatise on
prosody ( the study of poetic metres and verse).

The chakravala method is a cyclic algorithm to solve indeterminate quadratic

equations, including the Pell’s equation. This method for obtaining integer solutions
was developed by Brahmagupta, one of the well known mathematicians of the
7th century CE. Another mathematician, Jayadeva later generalized this method for a
wider range of equations, which was further refined by Bhāskara II in
his Bijaganita treatise.

Slide 5
Excavations at Harappans sites have yielded rulers or linear measures made from
ivory and shell. Marked out in minute subdivisions with amazing accuracy, the
calibrations correspond closely with the hasta increments of 1 3/8 inches, traditionally
used in the ancient architecture of South India. Ancient bricks found at the excavation
sites have dimensions that correspond to the units on these rulers.
Slide 6

Slide 7
Indus civilization, also called Indus valley civilization or Harappan civilization,
the earliest known urban culture of the Indian subcontinent. The nuclear dates of the
civilization appear to be about 2500–1700 BCE, though the southern sites may have
lasted later into the 2nd millennium BCE.

The civilization was first identified in 1921 at Harappa in the Punjab region and then
in 1922 at Mohenjo-daro (Mohenjodaro), near the Indus River in the Sindh (Sind)
region. Both sites are in present-day Pakistan, in Punjab and Sindh provinces,
respectively. The ruins of Mohenjo-daro were designated a UNESCO World Heritage

site in 1980.

The Indus civilization is known to have consisted of two large cities, Harappa and
Mohenjo-daro, and more than 100 towns and villages, often of relatively small size.
The two cities were each perhaps originally about 1 mile (1.6 km) square in overall
dimensions, and their outstanding magnitude suggests political centralization, either
in two large states or in a single great empire with alternative capitals, a practice
having analogies in Indian history. It is also possible that Harappa succeeded
Mohenjo-daro, which is known to have been devastated more than once by
exceptional floods. The southern region of the civilization, on the Kathiawar
Peninsula and beyond, appears to be of later origin than the major Indus sites. The
civilization was literate, and its script, with some 250 to 500 characters, has been
partly and tentatively deciphered; the language has been indefinitely identified
as Dravidian.

Slide 8

In Harappan Civilization, Harappans  had developed proper weights and measures. As

they were involved in trade and exchange activities, so they needed standard
measures. They need weights and measures for commercial use and for building
purposes. From Harappan sites Cubical chert weights and several sticks with measure
marks have been excavated. The weights exhibit a binary system. The ratio of weight
is doubled from 1,2,4,8,16,32,64 and then in decimal multiples of 16. The smallest
weight is 0.856 gram. The most common weight measure of 16th ratio weighs 13.65
grams.
Balance Weights are in the shape of cubes & chert and have been used for weighing
jewellery and metal.
In Indus Valley Civilization the rulers(measuring scale ) are made from Ivory. The
ruler are calibrated to about 1.6 mm & 1 inch was around 1.75 cm.

Slide 9
The Talamana ( Rhythm Measure) system is widely used in India by traditional
architects and makers of sacred images and divine icons. It is a measurement system
which helps in representing beings according to their importance in an image, and not
according to their actual physical size. This is in accordance with the principles of the
Indian art tradition which does not seek to represent the physicality of a form, but its
essence. Not the ‘actual and physical’, but the ‘ideal’ perfect form of the original
‘idea’ from which endless variations have the possibility of emerging as individual
manifestations. The Talamana system does not provide an absolute scale, but a
proportional relationship of parts to the whole; which can be used to create perfect
forms on all scales from miniature images to colossal representations. The principles
of the Talamana system can be applied in all contemporary design contexts, visual or
verbal, where elements have to be arranged according to their hierarchy: from product
interfaces to information websites, and from the printed page to packaging.

Slide 10
Unlike most Harappan cities, Dholavira in the Rann of Kachchh (23°53’10” N,
70°13’ E), excavated by R. S. Bisht in the 1990s, presents us with a largely
undisturbed plan and clearly delineated multiple enclosures covering about 48
hectares. This fascinating site displays two marked specificities. While Harappan
town-planning is usually based on a duality acropolis / lower town, Dholavira’s plan
(Fig. 1) is triple: an acropolis or upper town consisting of a massive “castle” and an
adjacent “bailey,” a middle town (including a huge ceremonial ground), and a lower
town, a large part of which was occupied by a series of reservoirs.