World's most ancient civilization

Stanley Volpert

"India is the world's most ancient civilization. Nowhere on earth can you find such a rich and multi-layered tradition that has remained unbroken and largely unchanged for at least five thousand years. Bowing low before the onslaught of armies, and elements, India has survived every invasion, every natural disaster, every mortal disease and epidemic, the double helix of her genetic code transmitting its unmistakable imprint down five millennia to no less than a billion modern bearers. Indians have demonstrated greater cultural stamina than any other people on earth. The essential basis of Indian culture is Religion in the widest and most general sense of the world. An intuitive conviction that the Divine is immanent in everything permeated every phase of life," says StanleyWolpert.

Indic civilization has enriched every art and science known to man. Thanks to India, we reckon from zero to ten with misnamed "Arabic" numerals (Hindsaa - in Arabic means from India), and use a decimal system without which our modern computer age would hardly have been possible.

Science and philosophy were both highly developed disciplines in ancient India. However, because Indian philosophic thought was considerably more mature and found particular favor amongst intellectuals, the traditions persists that any early scientific contribution came solely from the West, Greece in particular. Because of this erroneous belief, which is perpetuated by a wide variety of scholars, it is necessary to briefly examine the history of Indian scientific thought. From the very earliest times, India had made its contribution to the texture of Western thought and living. Michael Edwardes, author of British India, writes that throughout the literatures of Europe, tales of Indian origin can be discovered. European mathematics - and, through them, the full range of European technical achievement – could hardly have existed without Indian numerals. But until the beginning of European colonization in Asia, India’s contribution was usually filtered through other cultures.

"Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have been made in Europe were in fact made in India centuries ago." - Grant Duff, British Historian of India. Dr. Vincent Smith has remarked, "India suffers today, in the estimation of the world, more through the world's ignorance of the achievements of the heroes of Indian history than through the absence or insignificance of such achievement."

Source:www.hinduwisdom.com