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This book is a significant contribution to the socio-political history of science and technology in India, combining a wholistic perspective with a strong regional flavour.It revolves around two basic issues. First is the role of science and technology in empire-building in Asia, specifically in India, and financing its maintenance through maximum exploitation of its human, natural, agricultural and other resources by launching and executing a number of exploratory projects, termed as ‘field sciences'. Such an imperial focus was undergirded by a crucial objective; the acquisition of hegemony through social control based on intimate knowledge of horizontal and vertical divisions in lndian society around the axes of religion and caste. Formalised as colonial ethnography by the administrators, it was institutionalised as a discipline in the British universities. Second concerns the decoding of the complex response of the Indian intelligentsia including the English-educated as well as the experts and advocates of classical and regional languages which were the key to indigenous knowledge in indigenous sciences, arts and literature.The book also discusses the innovative use of print technology by Arya Samaj in recasting Hindu consciousness and its alternative of seeking historical guidelines in the past.

This book critically examines different aspects of scientific and technological development in Ancient India. It studies the special contribution of the history of science in our scientific understanding and its relationship with the philosophy and sociology of science.The volume: Discusses diverse and wide-ranging themes including Tibetan Buddhist tradition of neuro-biology; Sheds light on the unique developments within iron technology and urbanization in ancient Odisha; Studies the trajectory of proto-historic astronomy in India and the science of monsoon in early India; Evaluates the legacy of Aryabhata based on his major works related to astronomy and mathematics through a multidimensional perspective; Analyses the traditional knowledge of medicine in early India, the golden age of surgery with reference to the ancient Greek and Arabic systems of medicine, and the Buddhist influence on the science of medicine in Tibet. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of ancient history, Indian history, history of science, history of technology, science and technology studies, and South Asian studies.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the history and evolution of the major disciplines of science, which include the basic sciences, bioscience, natural sciences and medical science, with special emphasis on the Indian perspective. While academic interest shown in the history and philosophy of science dates back to several centuries, serious scholarship on how the sciences and the society interact and influence each other can only be dated back to the twentieth century. This volume explores the ethical and moral issues related to social values, along with the controversies that arise in relation to the discourse of science from the philosophical perspectives.The book sheds light on themes that have proved to have a significant and overwhelming influence on present-day civilisation. It takes the reader through a journey, on how the sciences have developed and have been discussed, to explore key themes like the colonial influences on science; how key scientific ideas have developed from Aristotle to Newton; history of ancient Indian mathematics; agency, representation, deviance with regard to the human body in science; bioethics; mental health, psychology and the sciences; setting up of the first teaching departments for subjects such as medicine, ecology and physiology in India; recent research in chemical technology; and even the legacy of ancient Indian scientific discoveries.A part of the Contemporary Issues in Social Science Research series, this interdisciplinary work will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, modern history, sociology of medicine, physical sciences, bioscience, chemistry and medical sciences. It will be of interest to the general reader also.

The purpose of this book is to bring out authentic scientific knowledge of ancient India, which remained hidden for years. Since most of the Indian traditional knowledge existed in oral form, foreigners have patented our knowledge in their own names. The scientific discoveries made by ancient Indians were deliberately kept away from modern science. Our mathematician and scholars, like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Bhaskaracharya have made precious contributions in the spheres of science and mathematics. For example, Aryabhata was the first to say that all the planets revolve around Sun in a circular orbit, about 1000 years before Copernicus. He said that the earth is round, suspended in space and rotates around its axis. Aryabhata also introduced the digit's (zero) in decimal number system, which is used by the whole world today.The mathematical rules for operating zero and negative numbers were given by Brahmagupta. Bhaskaracharya gave concept of infinity, infiniteseries, solutions of complicated equations, theory of eclipse, gravitational attractions between planets, etc. His books on Arithmetic, Algebra,Planets and Spheres were taught throughout India for 700 years before the introduction of the British education system under the Macaulay plan.

This volume studies the concept and relevance of HISTEM (History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine) in shaping the histories of colonial and postcolonial South Asia. Tracing its evolution from the establishment of the East India Company through to the early decades after the Independence of India, it highlights the ways in which the discipline has changed over the years and examines the various influences that have shaped it. Drawing on extensive case studies, the book offers valuable insights into diverse themes such as the East–West encounter, appropriation of new knowledge, science in translation and communication, electricity and urbanization, the colonial context of engineering education, science of hydrology, oil and imperialism, epidemic and empire, vernacular medicine, gender and medicine, as well as environment and sustainable development in the colonial and postcolonial milieu.An indispensable text on South Asia's experience of modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asian studies, modern Indian history, sociology, history of science, cultural studies, colonialism, as well as studies on Science, Technology, and Society (STS).

This book examines key aspects of the history, philosophy, and culture of science in India, especially as they may be comprehended in the larger idea of an Indian civilization. The authors, drawn from a range of disciplines, discuss a wide array of issues — scientism and religious dogma, dialectics of faith and knowledge, science under colonial conditions, science and study of grammar, western science and classical systems of logic, metaphysics and methodology, and science and spirituality in the Mahabharata. This collection of essays aims to evolve a framework in which science, culture, and society in India may be studied fruitfully across disciplines and historical periods. With its diverse themes and original approaches, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of the history and philosophy of science, science and religion, cultural studies and colonial studies, philosophy and history, as well as India studies and South Asian studies.

To understand modern science as a coherent story, it is essential to recognize the accomplishments of the ancient Hindus. They invented our base-ten number system and zero that are now used globally, carefully mapped the sky and assigned motion to the Earth in their astronomy, developed a sophisticated system of medicine with its mind-body approach known as Ayurveda, mastered metallurgical methods of extraction and purification of metals, including the so-called Damascus blade and the Iron Pillar of New Delhi, and developed the science of self-improvement that is popularly known as yoga. Their scientific contributions made impact on noted scholars globally: Aristotle, Megasthenes, and Apollonius of Tyana among the Greeks; Al-Biruni, Al-Khwarizmi, Ibn Labban, and Al-Uqlidisi, Al-Ja?iz among the Islamic scholars; Fa-Hien, Hiuen Tsang, and I-tsing among the Chinese; and Leonardo Fibbonacci, Pope Sylvester II, Roger Bacon, Voltaire and Copernicus from Europe. In the modern era, thinkers and scientists as diverse as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Carl Jung, Max Müller, Robert Oppenheimer, Erwin Schrödinger, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Henry David Thoreau have acknowledged their debt to ancient Hindu achievements in science, technology, and philosophy. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the largest scientific organizations in the world, in 2000, published a timeline of 100 most important scientific finding in history to celebrate the new millennium. There were only two mentions from the non-Western world: (1) invention of zero and (2) the Hindu and Mayan skywatchers astronomical observations for agricultural and religious purposes. Both findings involved the works of the ancient Hindus. The Ancient Hindu Science is well documented with remarkable objectivity, proper citations, and a substantial bibliography. It highlights the achievements of this remarkable civilization through painstaking research of historical and scientific sources. The style of writing is lucid and elegant, making the book easy to read. This book is the perfect text for all students and others interested in the developments of science throughout history and among the ancient Hindus, in particular.

In The Circulation of Knowledge Between Britain, India and China, twelve scholars examine how knowledge, things and people moved within, and between, the East and the West from the early modern period to the twentieth century. The collection starts by looking at the ways and means that knowledge circulated, first in Europe, but then beyond to India and China. It engages the knowledge and encounters of those Europeans as they moved across the globe. It participates in the attempt to open up more nuanced and balanced trajectories of colonial and post-colonial encounters. By focusing on exchange, translation, and resistance, the authors bring into the spotlight many'bit-players'and things originally relegated to the margins in the development of late modern science. Contributors include Karen Smith, Larry Stewart, Savrithri Preetha Nair, Jan Golinski, Arun Bala, Jonathan Topham, Khyati Nagar, Yang Haiyan, Fa-ti Fan, Grace Yen Shen, Jahnavi Phalkey, Veena Rao, and Sundar Sarukkai.

This collection of essays reflects the wide range of David Pingree's expertise in the scientific texts (above all, concerning astronomy and astrology) of Ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, India, Persia, and the medieval Arabic, Hebrew and Latin traditions. Both theoretical aspects and the practical applications of the exact sciences-in time keeping, prediction of the future, and the operation of magic-are dealt with.The book includes several critical editions and translations of hitherto unknown or understudied texts, and a particular emphasis is on the diffusion of scientific learning from one culture to another, and through time.Above all, the essays show the variety and sophistication of the exact sciences in non-Western societies in pre-modern times.

Interest in the science, technology and medicine of India under British rule has grown in recent years and has played an ever-increasing part in the reinterpretation of modern South Asian history. Spanning the period from the establishment of East India Company rule through to Independence, David Arnold's wide-ranging and analytical survey demonstrates the importance of examining the role of science, technology and medicine in conjunction with the development of the British engagement in India and in the formation of Indian responses to western intervention. One of the first works to analyse the colonial era as a whole from the perspective of science, the book investigates the relationship between Indian and western science, the nature of science, technology and medicine under the Company, the creation of state-scientific services,'imperial science'and the rise of an Indian scientific community, the impact of scientific and medical research and the dilemmas of nationalist science.

Another Reason is a bold and innovative study of the intimate relationship between science, colonialism, and the modern nation. Gyan Prakash, one of the most influential historians of India writing today, explores in fresh and unexpected ways the complexities, contradictions, and profound importance of this relationship in the history of the subcontinent. He reveals how science served simultaneously as an instrument of empire and as a symbol of liberty, progress, and universal reason--and how, in playing these dramatically different roles, it was crucial to the emergence of the modern nation. Prakash ranges over two hundred years of Indian history, from the early days of British rule to the dawn of the postcolonial era. He begins by taking us into colonial museums and exhibitions, where Indian arts, crafts, plants, animals, and even people were categorized, labeled, and displayed in the name of science. He shows how science gave the British the means to build railways, canals, and bridges, to transform agriculture and the treatment of disease, to reconstruct India's economy, and to transfigure India's intellectual life--all to create a stable, rationalized, and profitable colony under British domination. But Prakash points out that science also represented freedom of thought and that for the British to use it to practice despotism was a deeply contradictory enterprise. Seizing on this contradiction, many of the colonized elite began to seek parallels and precedents for scientific thought in India's own intellectual history, creating a hybrid form of knowledge that combined western ideas with local cultural and religious understanding. Their work disrupted accepted notions of colonizer versus colonized, civilized versus savage, modern versus traditional, and created a form of modernity that was at once western and indigenous. Throughout, Prakash draws on major and minor figures on both sides of the colonial divide, including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, the nationalist historian and novelist Romesh Chunder Dutt, Prafulla Chandra Ray (author of A History of Hindu Chemistry), Rudyard Kipling, Lord Dalhousie, and John Stuart Mill. With its deft combination of rich historical detail and vigorous new arguments and interpretations, Another Reason will recast how we understand the contradictory and colonial genealogy of the modern nation.