How Indian shastra is a type of science
In The Man from Earth (2007), a brilliant but little-known science fiction film, the protagonist John Oldman says, "Did you know Voltaire was the first to suggest that the universe was created by a gigantic explosion? ... And that Goethe was the first to suggest that spiral nebulae were swirling masses of stars. We now call them galaxies. It's kind of funny how often new concepts of science find their first tentative forms of expression in the arts."
This insight will help explain much of the recent absurd claims of finding science and technology in our ancient texts - be it the Vedas, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Puranas, or the Darshanas. It will also help put to rest the several detractors of the magnificence of ancient Indian thought. Before we go there, let us take a more recent example of this phenomenon. In this fascinating video, we see how Vincent Van Gogh - during his most psychotic years - was able to capture turbulent flow in his paintings. And turbulence is a concept that some of the brightest scientific minds are still grappling with. So did Van Gogh know fluid dynamics? Unlikely. And yet can we say that Van Gogh was totally oblivious to the concept of turbulence?
Possibly since the time of Galileo, "science" has come to mean "the systematic theoretical and practical study of the physical world by means of observation, hypothesising, and experiment". Only in the recent years has the scope of science broadened to include grey areas like psychology, cognition, and linguistics. But the word "science" comes from the Latin scientia, which means "knowledge". The French word savant refers to "a person who knows" (originating from the verb savoir, "to know") and not just a scientist. The German word wissenschaft refers to "a systematic pursuit of knowledge" of which science is a part. The Sanskrit word shastra refers to "specialised knowledge about a subject". (The word vijnana is a reasonable approximation for "science", but technically speaking vijnana means "applied knowledge" or "the wisdom that arises from experience.")
It is clear therefore that the early thinkers did not make a separation between science, humanities, and the arts - for them everything was knowledge, and worth pursuing. With this awareness, when we look at some of our ancient texts, we find early hints of what came under the purview of "science" many years later.
The Vaisheshika Darshana is one of the six traditional schools of Indian philosophy that deals with ontology (the philosophical study of existence, reality, being, and becoming). Kanada Kashyapa, the founder of this school, says that the entire universe is made up of minute, finite, indivisible particles called paramanu. Today, we call them as atoms. But he uses a "philosophical" argument to arrive at this conclusion. So did Kanada Kashyapa know atomic physics? Unlikely. And yet can we deny that this is an early form of the atomic theory?
In the Mandukya Upanishad, we find a mention of the four states of consciousness - the wakeful state (jagarita), the dream state (svapna), the deep sleep state (sushupti), and the state of all-pervading self-awareness (turiya). One could draw a parallel with the different frequencies of brain waves - beta, alpha, theta, and delta - that are measured by electroencephalography.
In the Surya Siddhanta, an ancient treatise on astronomy, the author speaks of a staggering timeline and mentions that the day of Lord Brahma is four point three two billion human years, which is said to be the age of the current universe. In Carl Sagan's television series Cosmos, he says, "Hinduism is the only religion in which the timescales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology".
Sayana, a 14th century polymath and one of the important traditional commentators on the Vedas, wrote in his Rigveda commentary that the sun travels 2,200 yojanas in half a nimesha. A yojana is about eight kilometres and a nimesha is 106.67 microseconds (30 nimeshas make one kastha and 30 kashtas make one kala, which equals 96 seconds). So Sayana's calculation gives us a speed of 330,000 km/s for the speed of light, which is quite close to modern figure.
There are several such examples of early poetic expressions of our ancient masters that can be now connected with some concept of modern science by means of post-diction. This should not be taken as an evidence for science in our scripture and at the same this we should not lose sight of the greatness of their conception and their devotion to the aesthetic beauty of composition. An ancient body of knowledge does not need the crutches of science to be valuable.
Apart from our traditional scriptures, we have a vast body of knowledge in the exact sciences. India was at the forefront of science and technology for many, many years. It is well-known that India gave the world the seminal concepts of "zero" and "infinity" as well as the decimal system. In the Baudhayana Shulba Sutra, a manual dedicated to the construction of fire altars for the Vedic fire ritual, we find a discussion on what is today called the Pythagorean Theorem and Pythagorean Triples. In the Surya Siddhanta, we find the roots of modern trigonometry.
Similarly, the ancient Indian system of healthcare, Ayurveda (literally "the knowledge of long life") considers body, mind, and attitude of a person as a single unit since a failing in one affects the others. They gave a holistic approach to health care, not just treating the disease but seeking to make fundamental changes in the patient's lifestyle and attitude to attain a state of sustained good health.
When we approach the study of ancient cultures without too many biases and remain open to new ideas, we will be able to not only marvel at their brilliance in science but also their sensitivity in understanding life from multiple perspectives.