Kindly
accept my greetings for the season.
I
also welcome you all to this Seminar on the subject Indian Contribution to World
Civilization. We have been conducting Seminars since 1982 on
Different Facets of
Indian Culture. This is the 29th Seminar in
the Series.
Indian
contribution in language, mathematics, astronomy, textile, agriculture,
metallurgy, health sciences, philosophy, architecture, navigation, trade
and Commerce and fine & performing arts is well documented. In spite
of this, the world knowledge books or for that matter our own history
books do not give the deserving credits to our own contributions.
In
my introduction in the first announcement, I have tried to elaborate
the reasons for this. Without understanding the history of Western science
and their moorings in the Greek and Roman culture, it is very difficult
to understand why Indian contributions are not given their proper place
in the History of Mankind. Recently some western scholars have started
a debate in this direction and every Indian researcher in the field
of History, Archeology or Sanskrit Studies must take note of this.
We
have various papers today which are going to deliberate on different
aspects of this subject. In my introductory remarks, I will be presenting
recent developments or findings which are going to help understand Indian
Contribution to World Civilization.
After
the occupation of Goa by the Portuguese
in 1510, the era of missionaries started in India.
This early period of missionary activities was dominated in Goa
and coast of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Portuguese,
Dutch, Danish, Finnish and German Missionaries stayed for decades in
this area and wrote voluminously about language, people, customs and
even the flora and fauna of South India. There
is a huge mass of literature in German language that still has not been
tapped. However, recent studies in Germany, USA and India has thrown
light on some of the very interesting facts related to science and technology
specially related to flora, fauna and medicines.
1.
Portuguese physician Garcia d’Orta (1501-1568) came to India
in 1534 and remained there till his death. Europe’s information on Indian
plants and drugs for tropical diseases primarily came from this missionary
and scholar. He travelled extensively within Portuguese territory
of Goa and Mumbai, discussed
with Brahmins, local physicians and other learned people who knew about
plants and their medicinal uses. This valuable information became a
very important book which d’Orta wrote in Portuguese in 1563 and its
translated title is: Colloquies on the Simples, Drugs and Materia Medica of India. This was the third
book printed in Goa. This book has very valuable
information on about 57 drugs which also includes the effect of Bhang
(cannabis). He also has described betel nut chewing habits of people.
D’Orta’s Scholarly information influenced various writers in Europe
who borrowed d’Orta’s details on medicinal plants of India.
In 1567 Finnish botanist L’Ecluse extracted essential information on
the characteristics and properties of Indian medicinal plants and published
an epitome in Latin. This work became so popular and valuable to scientists
and medical practitioners in Europe that it got
translated to Italian in 1582, to Portuguese in 1578 by another missionary
Christovas da Costa, and to French in 1690. Christovas da Costa’s translation
of Orta’s work became more popular because the book has full page illustrations
of 46 plants with roots. The famous botanist Count Ficalho brought out
a standard edition of d’Orta’s work
in two volumes in 1891 and 1895 respectively. However
Orta’s work got translated to English very late in 1913 by Sir Clements
Markham. Due to this Orta’s Valuable contribution remained unnoticed
to English speaking scholarship.
The information provided by scholars like d’Orta is very valuable from
the point of view of Indian Contribution to Western Pharmacopeias.
It is d’Orta who provided
for the first time the medicinal value of tamarind to
the Western world. Tamarind was sent out from the Indian west coast
to Cairo and then to Alexandria
and then to Venice for its
medicinal use in Europe. It was not known to
the Ancient Greeks. The name tamarind is derived from Arabic/Persian
tamar-e-hind, or Indian Date which was coined by traders. Markham’s
English translation in 1913 provides detailed information on this.
2.
100 years after d’Orta’s publication, another scholarly work on Indian
Medicinal plant specially from Southern India was brought out by Dutch Scholar Van
Reede titled Hortus Malabaricus in twelve volumes
from Amsterdam during 1686-1703.
This work describes about 780 species of Indian Plants with 794 illustrations.
Reede also took extensive efforts to verify every plant. He consulted
local vaidyas, traditional ayurvedic practitioners and even ezhava community
of toddy tapers. Van Reede rejected earlier Arabic classification and
nomenclature and even European knowledge and strictly adhered to the
local system of classification. Von Reede’s and other scholarly works
on Indian medicinal plants and their classification System influenced
and helped the great botanist Karl von Linne (Linnaeus) for his binominal
system of taxonomy which was published in 1735.
3.
Johann Ernest Gruendler (1677-1720) worked extensively on Siddha medicine.
He studied Sanskrit and Tamil palm leave manuscripts on the subject
and published his magnum opus Malabar Medicus (Tamil Doctors). This is a treatise on tropical
herbology with details on the diagnosis, Dosages as per the indigenous
medicine. He transported many
medical palm leave manuscripts to Germany.
4.
Bartholomaeus Zeigenbalg (1682-1719) has written profusely on customs
and manners of Hindus in Southern India. He translated
bible to Tamil and also wrote a Tamil-Latin grammar. His writings remained
unpublished for a very long period. Prof Caland, published them after
217 years titled Malabar Heathendom .
Zeigenbalg also had collected medical manuscripts which he had sent
to Germany.
He also notes that there had been a Tamil palm leave book on anatomy.
5.
C. S. John was also one of such missionaries. He collected many varieties
of fish of the local region with the help of fishermen,
got them sketched by professional Indian painters and he even preserved
about 50 species in jars and sent them to Berlin
to Professor Marcus Eliezer Bloch. In 1793 Bloch Published
his seminal twelve volume work on the natural history of fish. Bloch
honoured the missionaries for their work and even named some of the
fish species after John – Anthias Johnii, Iohnius Carutta and Iohnius Aneus.
One was dedicated to his other colleague Rottler Scomber Rottleri
and another dedicated to mission physician Klein: Scomber Kleinii
Very few are aware that though these are Latin names they are Indian
fishes.
6.
Johann Reinhold Forster was a professor at Halle.
He wanted some information on snakes from India.
Along with their size and behaviour Forster also wanted to know the
antidotes prescribed by Brahmins then. For this purpose he had sent
a detailed questionnaire to missionaries in South India.
C. S. John answered them thoroughly in 1792. Needless to say that this
information was included in the Forster’s work. Some scholars are of
the opinion that the information on the antidote for snake poison is
used in many of the modern drugs.
7.
Christian Samuel John (1747-1813) and Johann Peter Rottler (1749-1836)
were more interested in Indian medicinal plants than missionary work.
Rottler known for his magnum opus “A Dictionary of the Tamil and English
Language” which was published in four parts from 1834-1841. He spent
about 60 years in Tamil Nadu. He had collected more than 2000 plants
from the area. Rottler along with John and Johann Gottfried Klein had received
a Doctorate for their fieldwork in Natural history from the famous German
Leopoldina Academy of Researchers. Klein had collected many specimens
of medicinal herbs, birds and insects and had sent them to various scientific
Societies to Germany.
They were also accepted for membership in many reputable academies.
However Rottler’s Botanical Works remained unnoticed till recently.
K. M. Matthews published a paper in Botanical Journal of the Linnean
Society Vol 113 in 1993, pp 351-88; titled Notes on an Important Botanical Trips (1799-1800)
of J.
P. Rottler on the Coromandel Coast (India) with a translation of his Original Text, Explanatory Notes and a Map.
This article contains a translation of botanical observations of J.
P. Rottler, Botanisiche Bemerkungen auf der Hin- und Rückreise
von Trankenbar nach Madras vom herrn Missionair Rottler zu Trankenbar
mit Anmerkungen con Herrn Professor C. L. Wildenow, Der gesselscaft
Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin, Neue Schriften, vol 4, 1803, pp.
180-224.
Interestingly Rottler also accompanied Lord North, the first British
Governor of Ceylon, in 1795 who wanted a botany scholar to accompany
him on a trip to the island. Rottler collected large number of plant
during this visit which he donated to the Great Herbarium of King’s
College in London. In 1873
this collection was transferred to Kew.
C. S. John had a large collection of Indian Shells.
8.
Karl Graul (1814-1864) has also written profusely on Indian religion,
customs, language and manners. He also took many indigenous
medical palm-leave manuscript to Germany.
Malika Sankalitam is a Telugu manuscripts and contains Tamil names of the medicine. Sittar Aruda Nondi Chindu is another manuscript which contains
information about poisonous animals and curative medicines for their
bites.
9.
Dr. Bernhard Schmidt (1787-1857) was another missionary who along with
his philological work is also known for his work in Botany. He was an
expert on cryptogamous that is non-flowering plants.
10.
British Orientalist work in the field of Indian Medicinal plants and
Ayurveda started much later. Sir William Jones had referred to Indian
medicine and sciences in his Asiatic Society addresses. Whitelaw Ainslie
(1767-1837) published his famous long titled book Materia Indica, or some account
of those, articles which are employed by the Hindoos and other Eastern
nations in their medicines, arts and agriculture which was
published from Madras 1813
and revised edition appeared from London
in 1826. HH Wilson (1786-1860) also wrote on Indian medicine. Some of
his articles related to Indian medicine are:
Wilson, H.H. ((?)1823) -
On the medical and surgical sciences of the Hindus, ((?)The
Oriental Magazine and Calcutta Review 1, 207-212 and 349-356) reprinted
in H.H. Wilson (1984), I, 269-276 and 380-392; cf. Asiatic Journal 1823,
241-243; (?)German translation in Morgenblatt 1823, nos. 292-293.
Wilson, H.H. (1825a) - Kushta, or leprosy, as known
to the Hindus, Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society
of Calcutta 1, 1-44. [on ku.s.tha]
Wilson, H.H. (1825b) - Sketch of the history of
the Croton tiglium, and its employment in native medicine,
Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta 1, 249-278.
Wilson, H.H. (1826) - On the native practice in
cholera, with remarks, Transactions of the Medical and Physical
Society of Calcutta 2, 282-292.
Further, J.F. Royle delivered lectures at King’s College
and published them in the book form titled An Essay on the Antiquity
of the Hindoo Medicine in 1837 from London
More
work needs to be done on
manuscripts exported to Germany
and elsewhere.
Most
of the manuscripts collected by German missionaries who were working
for Danish mission at Tranquebar are available at Francken’s Foundation
Archives at Halle, East
Germany. Though a lot of work has been
done recently much more is required to be done.
I
would like to conclude my introductory remarks by bringing to your notice
two or three recent findings in history of sciences, archaeology and
genetics.
1. Mandeleev’s
periodic table and Panini.
Mandeleev’s periodic table is known to every student of chemistry.
However, very few must have noticed, even if noticed
, bothered to know why Mandeleev used prefix eka, dvi and tri
for elements yet to be discovered.
Earlier to Mandeleev, attempts at classification had considered some
two dimensional schemes which were arbitrary in their conception. Mandeleev’s
main contribution to periodic table was his insistence that the two
dimensional arrangement was comprehensive.
The
problem remains here that why and how Mandeleev insisted on this two
dimensional arrangement. It has been learnt now that he was inspired
to do so by Panini grammar and it’s two dimensional arrangement of alphabets
based on how the sounds are produced. Mandeleev was a friend and colleague
of great sanskritist Böhtlingk. Böhtlingk with his colleague Roth produced
the first Sanskrit-German dictionary in the world at St.
Petersburg, Russia
during 1852-1875. Böhtlingk also wrote one of the earliest book
on Panini. Mandeleev was invited to attend the Book Release function
of Second edition of Böhtlingk’s Paninian Grammar. He was greatly influenced
by Panini which resulted in him using Panini’s two-dimensional scheme
to formulate his own version of periodic table. As a tribute to Panini
he used Sanskrit prefixes for yet to be discovered elements in the periodic
table.
Prof.
Paul Kiparsky of Stanford
University is of the opinion
that Mandeleev was influenced by Shivasutra
of Panini’s.
Prof.
Subhash Kak of Louisiana
University, has written a
full article on this subject Mandaleev and the Periodic
table of Elements available at http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0411080
2. A paper submitted by a Russian Archeologist and Sanskritist
Prof. Yaroslav Vassilkov of Oriental Institute of St. Petersburg, Russia.
In
the last decades of 20th Century, few rattle mirrors were
unearthed in the Scynthian burial mounds of Altai
mountains in Russia.
On the backside of these mirrors, there are many figures of woman with
Indian dress, elephants etc. Initially archeologists were hesitant to
acknowledge the Indian origin of the mirrors as in India itself no object
of art was found dating to the period of 5th to 4th
Century BCE which is the period of these mirrors.
Prof.
Yaroslav Vassilkov presented a very interesting paper on these mirror
in recent World Archeological Congress as well as in the XIIth World
Sanskrit Conference held at Helsinki,
Finland in 2004.
Vassilkov has identified the story depicted on these mirror from Sanskrit
sources. He also has convincingly pointed out the Elephant’s style as
depicted in the gajashastra and has finally supported the Indian origin
of the mirror by the analysis of the metal. I have discussed this issue
personally with Vassilov during my visit to St.
Petersburg in 2003, 2004. He also had some findings
of other objects from the same area which probably also have an Indian
Origin.
It is interesting to know that the dates of these objects are around
5th BCE i.e pre-Mauryan. These findings are going to revolutionize
the Indian Chronology and also history of Indian art and metallurgy
3. Recent genetic Findings on the origins of south Asian population
Aryan Invasion Theory has remained dear to many historians of
South Asia writing on the history of India.
This theory of either invasion or migration of Aryans into Indian subcontinent
was based on pure imaginative theories which had no scientific support
from archeology, astronomy or literary sources.
Recent
studies in genetics have considerably weakened this theory. These findings
are definitely going to change the Indian history and chronology.
A
recent paper on this topic can be read in American Journal of Human
Genetics Dec 16, 2005
Similarly,
a recent article in National Geographic titled Early Humans
Settled India Before Europe, Study Suggests also gives valuable information about the
subject. The article can be read at:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1114_051114_india.html
I
am sure proceedings of today’s Seminar would throw light on many dark
corners of this subject.
Thank
you
Dr.
Vijay Bedekar
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