Today was our first day of eYogi Gurukul’s Hinduism Intermediate 201 course.
Today is special because it is India’s 71st Republic Day. We stood up for the Irish national anthem and the Indian national anthem. We kicked off the class with an inspirational story of a fool who pursued education and eventually became one of the greatest poets of Sanskrit. His name was Kalidas. The story was extremely inspiring and motivated the entire class.
Then we learned about Ancient Indian science. We learned about the likes of great Indian scientists such as Bodhayan, Kanad, Brahmagupta. I was surprised to find out that Bodhayan’s theorem was discovered before Pythagoras theorem and that they prove the same thing!
I also found out that Indian scientists discovered the decimal number system, pi, zero, infinity. They also produced the first theories of atomic structure.
India was so advanced in aspects of medicine and surgery. Susruta was renowned as ‘The Father of Plastic Surgery’. He reconstructed the body of parts of people whose body parts were cut off as a punishment back then.
Then, we had a 20 minutes break. We received a bag of delicious goodies and relaxed. We came back full of energy. We watched a clip of the blockbuster movie Karate Kid 2. The clip showed us how this knowledge build-up and be of great use one day.
The enthusiasm in the room was restored and we continued discussing the great scriptures of Hinduism. We learned about the extremely scientific knowledge recorded in the Vedas. In 2017 History Channel built a model of the “Vimana” (a plane described in the Sanskrit text, Rigveda). The experiment concluded that the model was fully capable of flying. Can you believe this information was in the Vedas which are thousands of years old?
The world-renowned scientist, Neils Bohr, once said “I go into Upanishads to ask questions”. Think of the value of the knowledge in our sacred Hindu texts. What a pity, over 9 million books in the ancient Nalanda university were burnt down by a Muslim ruler. Imagine the world today with that lost information.
The writer, Mark Twain, once said, “India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.”
We finished the class by reciting a few mantras. I can’t believe I learned so much in a single class. I’m thankful to all the members who were kindly helping out. I’m excited for the next class!