A Living Portrait of India
A Living Portrait of India |
India Heritage:Science:Physics |
| Machines & Mechanical Devices |
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According to the Rigveda, Atharvan produced fire by mechanical means and Visvakarma created an instrument of attrition for the purpose of harnessing fire. Adimanthana, as this device was called, consisted of a string and a stick placed over two pieces of wood. Chariots were known during the period of the Satpatha Brahmana (written in the third or fourth century B.C.). Means of grinding corn, pounding the same, macerating and straining devices for juice extraction were all familiar to Vedic peoples. Kautilya's Arthasastra (circa 300 BC) discusses weapons and projectile-hurling devices as also furniture-making, construction, and interior decoration of passenger ships! Bhoja's Samarangana-sutradhara (circa AD 1100) describes chronometers (putrika-nadiprabodhana) at a time when Galileo's attempts and Hooke and Huygens inventions (seventeenth century) were centuries in the future. These chronometers had chiming devices! Other achievements by the twelfth century were water supply plants, astronomical models, vehicles, and wooden robots.
SOURCES : The Cultural Heritage of India History of Science & Technology in India Concise Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Masters of the Millennium - 100 Indians who
shaped the century |
