'Principles of science originated in Vedas, but repackaged as western discoveries:’ ISRO chairman

On Wednesday, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) said that many concepts commonly attributed to Western scientists, such as algebra, square roots, time, architecture, the structure of the universe, metallurgy, and even aviation, had their origins in the Vedas and were brought to Europe via the Arab world.

Somanath, secretary of the department of space and chairman of the space commission, adding that the absence of a written script for the language spoken by Indian scientists at the time, Sanksrit, was a contributing factor. The language was kept alive because people listened to it and memorized it. The Devanagari script was not adopted for Sanskrit until much later in history.

In Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, Somanath addressed the graduating class of Maharishi Panini Sanskrit and Vedic University. The grammatical rules of Sanskrit are widely attributed to Panini. To "convey scientific thoughts and processes," as Somanath put it, the language's grammar and structure are perfect. He continued, "Sanskrit is quite popular among engineers and scientists. Those interested in AI study it because it is a language suited to computers. The potential of Sanskrit as a computational language is the subject of extensive study. While most of this is still in development, the story itself has grown considerably since it was first told.

Somanath remarked that the advantages of Sanskrit go beyond the scientific community.

"The ancient and philosophical form of Indian literature written in Sanskrit is extraordinarily rich. The scientific version is equally crucial. The study of culture, spirituality, and science are all intertwined in Sanskrit, he remarked.

According to Somanath, the influence of the Sanskrit-speaking scientists is seen in the development of Indian culture over the course of many centuries. Science, medicine, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and aviation discoveries were all documented in Sanskrit. He cited the astronomy text Surya Siddhanta, which dates back to the eighth century but has not been thoroughly studied or exploited. As a "rocket scientist," he found the Sanskrit text's discussion of the cosmos, the eons, and Earth's dimensions fascinating.

Among Isro's many important space missions are Chandrayaan-3 to the moon and Aditya-1 to the sun.