Interesting Facts about india
Came across this while preparing a school speech for my kid.. Very inspiring.. so thought of sharing with my ikolam freinds...
Interesting Facts about India
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*India never invaded any country in her last 100000 years of history.
*Chess was invented in India.
*Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies, which originated in India.
*The 'Place Value System' and the 'Decimal System' were developed in India in 100 B.C.
*The World's First Granite Temple is the Brihadeswara Temple at Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu. The shikhara of the temple is made from a single 80-tonne piece of granite. This magnificent temple was built in just five years, (between 1004 AD and 1009 AD) during the reign of Rajaraja Chola.
*India is the largest democracy in the world, the 6th largest Country in the world, and one of the most ancient civilizations.
*The game of Snakes & Ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called 'Mokshapat'. The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. In time, the game underwent several modifications, but its meaning remained the same, i.e. good deeds take people to heaven and evil to a cycle of re-births.
*India has the largest number of Post Offices in the world.
*The world's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
*Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to mankind. The Father of Medicine, Charaka, consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago.
*Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the Sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. According to his calculation, the time taken by the Earth to orbit the Sun was 365.258756484 days.
*Until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds in the world
(Source: Gemological Institute of America).
*India exports software to 90 countries.
*The four religions born in India - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, are followed by 25% of the world's population.
*There are 300,000 active mosques in India, more than in any other country, including the Muslim world.
*The Vishnu Temple in the city of Tirupathi built in the 10th century, is the world's largest religious pilgrimage destination. Larger than either Rome or Mecca, an average of 30,000 visitors donate $6 million (US) to the temple everyday.
*Yoga has its origins in India and has existed for over 5,000 years.
jkmrao
Tue, 2010-02-16 08:32
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Nice compendium of facts.
1) Do you know the real proof for the existence of chess in India? In poetry there is a bandha called turanga bandha (or the knight's move). In an 8X4 square (4 lines of eight letters), a poem is written. It must make sense when you read normally as well as when you read following the knight's move. ratnAkara in his treatise haravijaya wrote a poem in this bandha. ratnAkara lived in the ninth century. In later works like lakshmIsahasra and pAdukAsahasra too, one can find poems for this patterned poetry. There is mention of chaduranga in harshacharita written two or three centuries earlier. There is evidence that chess was prevalent in the present day Iran too more or less at the same time.
2) takshaSila (said to be named after Rama's brother bharata's son taksha) was a centre of learning in the fifth century BC, not earlier than that. But it is doubtful whether to call it a university like the one in nAlanda (sixth century AD ?). Opinions differ on this.
3) Of the four religions mentioned, Buddhism and Jainism were partially absorbed and partially killed by zealots. There are very few belonging to these faiths in India now. In particular, this animosity by the followers of the vedic religion or sanAtana dharma (there was no Hinduism then) extended to the burning of books too. Thus a sizable chunk of literature was lost forever. Quite a good portion of the early literature in the Dravidian languages was written by the Jains who were great literary scholars.
Regards! - mOhana
Lata
Tue, 2010-02-16 11:38
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Interesting facts to know and learn from. Thank you Vidhya and mOhanaji.