# Humanities & Anthropology > History & Civilisations >  Greatest Indian contribution(s) to the world ?

## Maciamo

To follow the series of contributions to the world, let's have a look at India, one of the world's oldest civilisation.

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## Tsuyoiko

When I saw the title of this thread the first thing that popped into my head was 'zero', so I was happy to see it at the top of your poll! I also voted for religions, yoga and food. Indian food is my favourite food of all - and I think the UK is about the best place (after India!) to eat it!

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## 4321go

What I think about is the "Buddhism" .It is a GREAT Religion. But I don't know why Buddhism have been fade away from India.

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## Kara_Nari

Yes, my first thoughts were food, and religion.
I was unaware that they brought chess into the world.
Chess is one of my all time favourite board games.
I really miss my glass chess set in New Zealand. I got it as a birthday present from one of my dearest friends last year.

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## Maciamo

> What I think about is the "Buddhism" .It is a GREAT Religion. But I don't know why Buddhism have been fade away from India.


It hasn't really faded away - just in the statistics. All the Buddhists were integrated into the Hindu religion, as one Hindu priest had the great idea to proclaim that Buddha was one of the avatar of Vishnu, and thus not a different god. Nowadays, in India more than anywhere else, a practice close to the original Buddhism survives with the Sadhu. They are real ascetics that have renouced all the material and emotional ties of this world for spiritual enlightenment, like Siddhartha Gautama did 2500 years ago. In comparison, forms of Buddhism in Tibet, China, Korea or Japan have become infused with shamanistic, polytheistic and animistic elements, which in my opinion have completely changed the original teachings of the Buddha.

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## lexico

I ticked every option except chess, 'cause I don't play it, not that it's not important as a widely played game. As for other, I would definitely include the Brahmi script, a kind of abugida used for writing Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit and Prakrit of Ancient India that spawned almost all the 30-some scripts of India, Tibet, and Southeast Asia collectively called Brahmic scripts or Indic scripts.

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## Tsuyoiko

That's a good point about the scripts Lex - I never thought of that. Aren't most European languages descended from Sanscrit?

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## Dutch Baka

HOTT AND KOLTT CURRY!!!!!!!!!!!  :Wavey:

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## lexico

> That's a good point about the scripts Lex - I never thought of that. Aren't most European languages descended from Sanscrit?


In a way yes; I tried to find a link to Indo-European scholar Paul Thieme's 1958 _Scientific American_  article, _The Indo-European Language_, but to no avail, so I am going to type it 'cause it's a vastly better summary compared to wikipedia info. It involves three figures the Italian Filippo Sassetti, the British Sir William Jones, and the Indian grammarian Panini.


> Romance languages and Teutonic, plus Greek-these were once the center of our linguistic universe. During the past 200 years, however, linguistics has been undergoing a kind of Copernican revolution. Now the familiar European tongues have been relegated to minor places in a vaster system of languages which unites Europe and Asia. Known collectively as the Indo-European language, this superfamily is far and away the most extensive linguistic constelleation in the world. It is also the most thoroughly explored: while other language families have remained largely unknown, the Indo-European family has monopolized the attention of linguists since the 18th century. The modern discipline of linguistics is itself a product of Indo-European studies. As a result of these intensive labors we have come to know a great deal about both the geneology and the interrelationships of this rich linguistic community.
> 
> If we look at the family as a whole, several questions spring to mind. Where did these languages come from ? Every family traces its descendent from a common acestor: what was our ancestral language ? What did it sound like ? What manner of men spoke it ? How did they come to migrate over the face of the earth, spreading their tongue across the Eurasian land mass ?
> 
> Lingusitics can now provide definite-if incomplete-answers to some of these questions. We have reconstructed in substantial part the grammar and sound system of the Indo-European language, as we call this ultimate forebear of the modern Indo-European family. Although much of the original vocabulary has perished, enough of it survives in later languages so that we can contrive a short dictionary. Fro the language in turn, we can puzzle out some characteristics of Indo-European culture. We can even locate the Indo-European homeland.
> 
> We can never hope to reconstruct the Indo-European language in complete detail. The task will be immeasurably easier if the Indor-Europeans had only left written records. But the Indo-Europeans, unlike their Egyptian and Mesopotamian contemporaries, were illiterate. Their language was not simply forgotten, to be relearned by archeologists of another day. It vanished without a trace, except for the many hints that we can glean and piece together from its surviving daughter languages.
> 
> [The Discovery of the Langauge]
> ...


So in the sense that India not only provided the language material to spark the long distance, genetic relationship between the languages of Europe and India, but also provided a vastly different, scientific method of language analysis, *Panini's Indian Grammar* as a scientific model of language should be mentioned as a major contribution to humanity as well. Here are some additional links that you might find interesting.

The Evolution of Languages: The Exploratorium Magazine Online Ruhlen interview with audio clips
William Jones (philologist): wikipedia
The Early History of Indo-European Languages, The Progression of Early Indo-European Languages (8000-1000 B.C.) pdf, 2 page chart
Indo-European: wikipedia
The Early Indo-European Languages: Scientific American Mrach 1990 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov

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## Index

Chess, as it's a great game, and Indian (classical) music. Indian music is perhaps one of the most advanced rhythmically.

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## Kara_Nari

What I like about Bollywood movies is that they can be having a huge killing bloody massacre, yet they will all be dancing and singing around.
I havent had much experience in watching Bollywood films, but there were one or two which will be memorable for the above said reasons.

I've met a couple of Bollywood stars, they really are OTT (over the top), makeup and hair stylists are right on hand for the teensiest change of wind.
They really really like everything to be just perfect.
I like their dedication though, and the patience of their assistants is amazing.

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## Maciamo

> I never thought of that. Aren't most European languages descended from Sanscrit?


No. Sanskrit is related to Latin, Ancient Greek, etc. but only because all of them descend from a older Aryan language. The Aryans lived in the region of the Caucasus (hence the term "Caucasian" for white) and northern Black Sea. They split into 2 groups, one that went westwards to conquer Europe, and one that went southeastwards to conquer Persia and Northern India. That's why they are called Indo-European languages. These Aryans had originally a common polytheist religion, which has derived into the Greco-Roman, Celtic, Norse and Hindu religions (=Indo-European religions). So Wiccan and other pagan religions are in fact distantly related to Hinduism and Buddhism (well as much as English or Gaelic are related to Hindi or Bengali).

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## Tsuyoiko

@Lexico - thanks for taking the time to type that article (here is an ice pack for your RSI :109: ) and for those links - that will keep me busy on Monday morning, when I should be working  :Poh:  




> No. Sanskrit is related to Latin, Ancient Greek, etc. but only because all of them descend from a older Aryan language.


Yeah, when I wrote it I knew I wasn't remembering exactly right. But isn't Sanscrit closer to that root language than any of the others?

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## Maciamo

> Yeah, when I wrote it I knew I wasn't remembering exactly right. But isn't Sanscrit closer to that root language than any of the others?


Nobody knows that. What's interesting is that Sanskrit still has native speakers in India, although it has also evolved into numerous new languages like Latin, but it's quite a long time that nobody speaks Latin as their mother-tongue anymore.

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## Tsuyoiko

> Nobody knows that. What's interesting is that Sanskrit still has native speakers in India, although it has also evolved into numerous new languages like Latin, but it's quite a long time that nobody speaks Latin as their mother-tongue anymore.


I wonder if it's the oldest language that is still in use? The other obvious contenders (that I can think of with my very limited knowledge!) are Hebrew and Chinese.

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## Zauriel

Hey, How come Kama Sutra--the world's greatest lovemaking manual isn't included in the poll?

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## Maciamo

> Hey, How come Kama Sutra--the world's greatest lovemaking manual isn't included in the poll?


Alright, I have added it.

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## Zauriel

Great, Maciamo-sama. 

Kama Sutra has been an excellent help to any couples on human sexuality and erogenuous zones of a human body. Numerous versions of Kama Sutra were published across over the world. If you want to sexually please your partner, you should read Kama Sutra.

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## Silverbackman

Probably Hindu philosophy mathematics, and wootz steel. All others are important too.

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## Mars Man

I voted, but I will admit. . . not so seriously. I lived with some folks from Gujarat in the USA, as I worked for almost two years with Japan Sari Palace, out of Roselle, NJ. Of course I had had an interest in India from before that, and had taught myself Hindi to some degree. 

I just love that cooking. . .man I can eat japatis all day long with alu subji and achar. And give me a plate of gulab manjoo and I'll just start planning on buying a bigger waist size right away. 

But I do like the music too, and at one point in time had a --well I cannot recall the name of the instrument, it was like a sitar, but not. It's the instrument that kind of helps keep the drone sound going.

And of course I just had to add the Kama Sutra. . . it highlights the 'spirtual' aspect of sexual connection in yoga-like bounds. It does so in a way that no other surviving belief-system work that I know of does. yeah !! MM

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## roadrunner

Out of interest. A lot of those inventions were made in the Indus Valley i.e. today's Pakistan, not in today's India.

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## Maciamo

> Out of interest. A lot of those inventions were made in the Indus Valley i.e. today's Pakistan, not in today's India.


That's true, but India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are all part of what is called the "Indian civilisation". If you find a better term than "Indian" that encompasses the cultures of these countries please let me know.

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## Derek Knatchbull

> When I saw the title of this thread the first thing that popped into my head was 'zero', so I was happy to see it at the top of your poll! I also voted for religions, yoga and food. Indian food is my favourite food of all - and I think the UK is about the best place (after India!) to eat it!


Yeah I like the food like all the other exotic spicey foods out there, but what exactly is so great about Yoga?...it's 'greatness has failed to grab my imagination. PS and what exactly constitutes a 'great religion'...ritualised burning to death of one's wife?

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## Derek Knatchbull

> Chess, as it's a great game, and Indian (classical) music. Indian music is perhaps one of the most advanced rhythmically.



What the hell is 'Indian classical music' ment to be? I thought there are hundred of different tribes and languages in India and probably hundreds of different music styles - so who prolaimed what as 'classical' and why. I bet you couldn't even name one supposed so-called 'classical' Indian musician or song. Stop thinking in soundbites.

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## Derek Knatchbull

> Great, Maciamo-sama. 
> 
> Kama Sutra has been an excellent help to any couples on human sexuality and erogenuous zones of a human body. Numerous versions of Kama Sutra were published across over the world. *If you want to sexually please your partner, you should read Kama Sutra*.



Lol, mankind was sexually pleasing itself long before the Kama Sutra appeared and proclaimed people were not F**cking properly. The Kama Sutra is for sexual failures and degenerates the natural instinct for sexual exploration and good old healthy lust within humans. PS Indians are not exactly renowned for their love making skills.

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## Derek Knatchbull

> Probably Hindu philosophy mathematics, and wootz steel. All others are important too.


Like a number of other things incorrectly labeled has 'Indian' wootz steel actually originated from China not India. PS what is 'Indian philosophy' and why is it so great?

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## Derek Knatchbull

> I wonder if it's the oldest language that is still in use? The other obvious contenders (that I can think of with my very limited knowledge!) are Hebrew and Chinese.


Think about it Tsuyoiko - how earth can it be the oldest language still in use. I asure you there hundreds of ancient languages still in use around the earth and also in India itself. Anyway deffinately ain't sanskrit and the word 'India' is actually an English term that only goes back hundred years or so.

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## Derek Knatchbull

> That's true, but India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are all part of what is called the "Indian civilisation". If you find a better term than "Indian" that encompasses the cultures of these countries please let me know.


'India' is an artificial state invented by the English - India didn't exist for most of the contributions you have listed. Even to this day, there are millions of people in India who have no idea that they live in somewhere called India. Also today's artificial India, just about has the most amount of successionist movements for any country in the world. Why should India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka be mumbojumbo-ed up together as some weird grandiose sounding curio called the 'Indian civilisation' why not the 'Assam civilisation' or the Pakistan civilisation' 'the China minor civilisation' The Indus civilisation was definately pre-Indian/pre-Hindoo etc, totally different from todays ruling cliches about what constitutes ancient Indianess. Thats why aspects of the Indus's civiliation like the dancing girl of Mohenjo Daro are never concidered as 'classical Indian dancing' -whatever that is. PS Maciamo why did you delibrately try to distort the term 'the Indus valley civilisation' (Harrappa) into the alien curio you like to call 'the Indian civilisation' The Indus valley civilisation is one of the most non-Indian things going in the sub-continent.

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## Maciamo

> What the hell is 'Indian classical music' ment to be? I thought there are hundred of different tribes and languages in India and probably hundreds of different music styles - so who prolaimed what as 'classical' and why. I bet you couldn't even name one supposed so-called 'classical' Indian musician or song. Stop thinking in soundbites.


You obviously don't know the difference between folk music and classical music. India and Europe both have hundreds of styles of _folk music_ over the ages and region by region. Classical music is normally associated with court music, or a genre with well-defined rules usually sponsored by the upper classes.




> Anyway deffinately ain't sanskrit and the word 'India' is actually an English term that only goes back hundred years or so.


Keep your xenophobic ignorance to yourself. The word India was already used by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Its first recorded use was by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE.




> 'India' is an artificial state invented by the English - India didn't exist for most of the contributions you have listed. Even to this day, there are millions of people in India who have no idea that they live in somewhere called India.


What do you make of the numerous Indian empires in history. Don't tell me that they were always smaller than the modern country because it's not the case. The ancient Maurya Empire is probably what gave India (+ Pakistan and Bangladesh) its sense of cultural and historical unity.

It's time for you to revise your history of India and maybe go there and try to find your millions of people who use Indian banknotes and the Indian Railway but are not aware that they live in a country called India. Even the European word "India" is widely used in India because English is the main official language with Hindi, and the only one used in the whole country (Hindi is hardly spoken in the South).




> PS Maciamo why did you delibrately try to distort the term 'the Indus valley civilisation' (Harrappa) into the alien curio you like to call 'the Indian civilisation' The Indus valley civilisation is one of the most non-Indian things going in the sub-continent.


The Harappa culture is just the cradle of what would become the Indian civilisation, just like ancient Greece, Anatolia and Italy were the cradle of modern European civilisation. The Indian subcontinent was politically united well before half of Europe had become Roman.

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## wecaz

Hi Maciamo,
I am an Indian and I think that I must take lessons from you about Indian heritage. I represent the youth of India, who is confused between the glittering western culture and sober Indian culture.

Most of the things about Indian heritage were told to us in the childhood looks like stories because I cannot provide any sort of proof. For example, few Indian kings have been believed to be using airplanes more than 5000 years ago when all other world was in stone age. There are beliefs that many stolen 'pandulipis' become the source of great inventions in the west.

There is no way to prove all the historical things we hear. Does the same phenomenon exist in other civilizations too, where native people believe something but can't provide conclusive proof?

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## Maciamo

> Hi Maciamo,
> I am an Indian and I think that I must take lessons from you about Indian heritage. I represent the youth of India, who is confused between the glittering western culture and sober Indian culture.
> 
> Most of the things about Indian heritage were told to us in the childhood looks like stories because I cannot provide any sort of proof. For example, few Indian kings have been believed to be using airplanes more than 5000 years ago when all other world was in stone age. There are beliefs that many stolen 'pandulipis' become the source of great inventions in the west.
> 
> There is no way to prove all the historical things we hear. Does the same phenomenon exist in other civilizations too, where native people believe something but can't provide conclusive proof?


Hi Wecaz and welcome to the forum ! 

I am sure people in every country have mistaken ideas about what was invented where. That is partly why I made a list of major inventions by country, so that people can check them up easily. I have heard people claim that this or that invention was from their country when in fact it was not. But I have never heard anything close to "airplanes were invented in India 5000 years ago".  :Wink: 

Funny that you should say 5000 years ago, because Indians and Europeans share a common ancestry about 5000 years ago, the Indo-Europeans from the Pontic-Caspian steppes. That's more true for northern and upper-caste Indians and for eastern and northern Europeans. It is explained on this page section about haplogroup R1a.

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## Nicolas Peucelle

My first thought was "Prince Siddharta" .. even if he is maybe from today Nepal

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## Mako

I voted for:
_Mathematics & modern numerals (including "0")_ 
_Religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism)_ 
_Philosophy, gurus & ashrams_

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## ^ lynx ^

KS  :Cool V:

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## Richard Coyle

I always thought chess was invented by the Arabs. Now I know better! Well, thanks India. As for the food, I'll have pan fried chicken with mashed potatoes, peas and gravy any day!!!  :Smile:

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## barbarian

india shows the world that different cultures, races and religions can live together in peace. when i think about india, the first thing in my mind is peace.

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## Yorkie

Naan bread.

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## oriental

> I always thought chess was invented by the Arabs. Now I know better! Well, thanks India. As for the food, I'll have pan fried chicken with mashed potatoes, peas and gravy any day!!!


Chess in India was played with dice. In the epic Mahabharat the Kauravas used loaded dice to cheat the Pandavas. Maybe this was a game of chess with loaded dice.

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## oriental

The name India is derived from Indus, which is derived from the Old Persian word Hindu, from Sanskrit सिन्धु Sindhu, the historic local appellation for the Indus River.The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi , the people of the Indus.The Constitution of India and usage in many Indian languages also recognises Bharat as an official name of equal status. The name Bharat is derived from the name of the legendary king Bharata in Hindu scriptures.Hindustan , originally a Persian word for “Land of the Hindus” referring to northern India and Pakistan before 1947, is also occasionally used as a synonym for all of India.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Indian...1096983?v=info

Sindh, as a western frontier of the South Asia, has always been exposed to the entry of migrants from Central Asia[_citation needed_] and the Middle East[_citation needed_]. The region received its name, Sindh, from the River Sindhu (Indus), and the people living in the region are referred to as Sindhi. The terms Hindi and Hindu are derived from word Sindh, as the ancient Persians pronunciate "s" as "h" (e.g. sarasvati as harasvati), the same way they called the people of this region as Hindhi people their language as Hindhi language and the region as Hindh, the name which is used for this region since ancient times and later for whole northern part of Indian sub-continent even today India is also known as Hindustan the name which has nothing to do with Hinduism, but related more to a people and their language named after the main river flowing through this region Sindhu (Indus).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sindhi_people

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## oriental

The Kushan Empire 30-375 A.D.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire

250px-Kushanmap.jpg

Their empire extended from northwest India to the Taklamakan Desert in Sinkiang, China. The Silk trade connected Middle east and South Asia to China. So Kashgar in China had a huge mix of people.

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## Taranis

oriental, I have moved your posts with links to movies into a separate, locked thread. If you post links to movies in this thread in the future, it will be considered a disruptive behaviour.

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## oriental

Thanks, I will look at the movies section.

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## Rainbow Warrior

What about King Ashoka's reign of peace and what this has had...

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## Rainbow Warrior

India's contribution to the building of civilization can be found in the Indus Valley
http://www.scribd.com/doc/127627632/...and-Rongorongo

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## Anthro-inclined

> India's contribution to the building of civilization can be found in the Indus Valley
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/127627632/...and-Rongorongo


Im sorry, but didnt civilization begin in the middle east with Sumeria?

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## albanopolis

My first thought was the number 0 too. It turned out that 0 to be such an important thing. Indians claim that they new a lot of math when west did not know. I have heard that they were writting math in verses. I don't know what kind of math was that. But I know that the only person of antiquity that new what was doing in math was Euclides. He introduced proof based math that revolutionized science. Indians are helping the west with workforce thuogh.

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## American Idiot

definitely the Kama Sutra was India's best contribution.

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