Sciences of the Ancient Hindus: Unlocking Nature in the Pursuit of Salvation

Modern science and medicine would be unrecognizable, and far more primitive, without the immense contribution of the ancient Hindus. They invented everyday essentials such as our base-ten number system and zero as a numeral. The ancient Hindus also developed a sophisticated system of medicine with its mind-body approach known as Ayurveda; detailed anatomical and surgical knowledge of the human body, including cataract surgery and the so-called plastic surgery; metallurgical methods of extraction and purification of metals, including the so-called Damascus blade; knowledge of various constellations and planetary motions that was good enough to assign motion to the Earth; and the science of self-improvement popularly known as yoga. Sciences of the Ancient Hindus covers various topics in the natural sciences and systematically uses Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Middle Eastern accounts dealing with the ancient Hindus. The works of noted scholars, Aristotle, Megasthenes, and Apollonius of Tyana among the Greeks; Al-Biruni, Al-Khwarizmi, Ibn Labban, and Al-Uqlidisi among Islamic scholars; Fa-Hien, Hiuen Tsang, and I-tsing among the Chinese; Leonardo Fibbonacci, Pope Sylvester II, Roger Bacon, Voltaire and Copernicus from Europe, provide the direct testimony of the immense contributions of the ancient Hindus. In the modern era, thinkers and scientists as diverse as Goethe, Emerson, Thoreau, Jung, Oppenheimer, and Schrodinger, to name a few, have acknowledged their debt to ancient Hindu achievements in science, technology, and philosophy.

Alok Kumar is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of physics at the State University of New York, Oswego. He was born and educated in India. Later, he taught at California State University at Long Beach. He has been teaching in the American higher education for over three decades. At Oswego, Kumar has received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and the President’s Award for Creative and Scholarly Activity and Research. He has more than 75 refereed research publications and coauthored two other books: (1) Science in the Medieval World (1991 and 1996) and (2) A History of Science in World Cultures: Voices of Knowledge (2016). Kumar is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany and NOVA/NASA fellowships. About 120 articles are published in the popular media that discuss Kumar’s scholarship. These media outlets include The Washington Post, Family Life, The Scientists, The Fountain, and India Abroad. He is active in the fields of atomic physics, chemical physics, history of science, and science education.