4

Contributions of Early India

4.1 Science in the Vedas

We know about the life and times of the early Aryans mainly from their religious scriptures, the Vedas, the oldest of them being the Rigveda (ca. 1500 BC). In the Vedas, scientific thoughts have been conveyed in a spiritual background all along. There are many hymns that contain gems of scientific ideas.

Mathematics

Arithmetic and Geometry were well developed during the Vedic period. The Aryans were quite at home with large numbers. The Vedic Sage, Medhatithi, is known to have enumerated various multiples of ten including 1012 in a systematic way.

The complicated religious rituals of the Aryans provided the impetus for the development of Geometry as well as Astronomy, in early India. For ...

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