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Journal of Scientitic & Industri al Research Vol. 62, October 2003, pp 1035- 1038

BOOK REVIEW

India's Interaction with China, Central and West Asia - History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, Volume III, Part 2 , edited by A Rahman, Genera l Edito r: 0 P C hattopadhyaya (Oxford Uni vers ity Press, New De lhi 11 0 002) pp 533 + xxx, Pri ce: Rs 1750/-[IS BN 01 95657896]

Though c ivili zati ons and cultures may arise independently, the ir subseq uent development a lways owes muc h to its ne ighbors. Indi a has been no exception to thi s rule. Ri ght from the incepti ona l peri od of Mo honj o-daro, Indi a has a lways g iven and accepted lo t fro m its ne ighbours and eontempora ri es in Mesopotami a, Greece, Rome, Egy pt , Centra l As ia, and China. Thi s inte rac tion has sometimes been of confrontati on and strife. Neverthe less, the re were a lways many peaceful inte rludes and Indi a has constantl y ada pted the received ideas to its needs . Trade was a maj or fac tor in the inte ract ions. A reas such as, ag ri culture and medic ine , and sc iences such as, mathematics and as tronomy have benefited immensely fro m ex te rna l influence. The vo lume unde r review examines some of the maj or features o f the interac ti on be tween Indi a, China and Centra l, and West As ia. The topics covered inc lude gene ra l ideas and princ ipl es, phil osophy. mathemati cs, astronomy and medic ine, and tec hnologies , espec ia ll y in agri culture, meta llurgy, and tex til es.

Apart from two introducti ons (one gene ral and common to a ll the books in the series and the othe r spec ific to thi s vo lume), the re are 28 pape rs in the book, divided into fi ve sec tions. Secti on I compri sing four papers, di scusses the general features and areas of inte racti on be tween India and the mentioned areas, the emphas is be ing on mi grations and cultura l exchanges. The second sec ti on, having nine pape rs, deals with sc ience, espec ia lly mathematics and astronomy , as we ll as medic ine. The third secti on which includes four papers, is on technology, the emphasIs be ing on agri cultura l techno logies and metallurgy. The fourth section a lso conta ining four papers, deal s with interacti ons in the area of textiles,

both the techn o logy of text i Ie manufacture and thew cultura l one of the evo luti on of dresses and costumes. The fin a l sec ti on hav in g two papers is on mu sic .

The firs t sec ti on conside rs the broad patte rn of in te racti ons. Ind ia had d irec t re lat ionshi ps with a ll the areas unde r cons iderati on. In additi on, the re were many influences, w hi ch came indirect ly, be ing transmitted from one a rea to anothe r be fore reaching Indi a . The inte rac ti ons a rose fro m mi grat ions o f peo ple, trade and the in flue nces of various conque rors . Mi grati ons o f peo pl e to Indi a from Iran, Arabi a and cent ra l As ia was constant over the centuries, a lthough in re lat ive ly sma ll numbers and compri s ing esse ntia ll y art isans, re li g ious scho lars and merchant s. There was a lso a s ignifi cant reverse fl ow. Aden was cons ide red Indi an port. The re were Indian settl e ments in A lexa ndri a. many c iti es of Iraq and Iran and in South Eas t As ia. Ind ian spec ia li sts inc lud ing horse traine rs and came l dri ve rs served in many of the continenta l a rmi es.

T he chap te r in thi s sec tion on Ind ia-Chi na inte racti ons is espec ia ll y in te rest ing, as some features of it is not gene ra ll y kn ow n in Indi a. With C hi na the recorded direct inte rac ti ons were predominantl y those o f Buddhi st monks and scho lars. The hi s to ry of Indi a­C hina inte racti ons via the Budd hi st re li g ion is well known, as with Fa-Hsien, Huan-Tsang and Yi-jing from the fifth to seventh centuri es AD . The contact between South Indi a and C hina was based , essentia ll y on trade, wh i Ie re i ig ious contac ts dominated wit h the No rth . Trade was carri ed on bo th by overl and and sea routes .. The re was direc t trade in many items, inc luding potte ry, me ta llic arti c les, s ilk , e tc. lndi a a lso acted as an inte rmediary in C hina 's trade with the West. The c hapte r g i yes many instances of the ex tent and antiquity of re lati ons between India and C hi na , both directl y and co ming throug h o the r regions. In the Pe riplu s of the Erythrian Sea, a Greek book on maritime geography dated to the f irst century AD, the auth or menti ons a bu sy port in the Indu s Delta (currentl y in Paki stan) where s ilk fea tures as an important commodity . He a lso a lludes to Greek and

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Indian traders bringing Ch inese silk to India trough perilous voyages. Kautilya 's Arthasastra , dating to the fourth century BC refers to "Chinapatta" or si lk . At Yumen, a halt on the famou s Silk Road through Central Asia, a piece of s ilk cloth with a line of Brahmi sc ript of the Kushana styl e has been found , refe rring to the length of the c loth bundl e. A document written in cl ass ica l Japanese in AD 779 refers to an Indian settlement at Guangzhou, on the east coast of China, where there were three Indian temples with pries ts in attendance, which implies the ex istence of at least several hundred Indian s. The Indi an ships were reported to draw 60 to 70 ft of water, which if true, indicates extraordinarily large sizes for such times.

In agriculture and related industries , the interacti ons were very strong. Whil e silk originated in C hina and both the commodity and technique were transferred to India during so many centuri es, the reverse is true for cotton . Cane sugar (gur or shark Clira) was a famous Indi an export to China in ancient times and was called by the Chines as "stone honey" . S imilarl y, refined white sugar, which was made by process ing of brown sugar with lime was a Chinese in vention and ex ported to India, and even now it is ca ll ed c hini in Hindi and many other North Indian languages. Chestnut, pe rs immon , peach, pear and tangerine were introduced to India from China, the lates t in the series bei ng litchi , which was introduced in the nineteenth century. Similarly , black pepper, lotus fl ower, pineapple walnut, spinach, jack fmit , mango, sandalwood, etc . were introduced to China from India .Tea was present in India , but its large scale cultivation and use was introduced by the British from Chi na. In medicine, there are reported to be many Ch inese translations of Indi an medica l treati ses such as, Nagarjuna and known by different names such as Prescriptions of the Western Regions and Brahman prescripti ons. C hinese medical treat ises such as, "Quianjin Yaofang" and "Waita i miyao" contain many prescriptions and herbs of Indi an origin . Cataract removal "with a golden need le" has been referred to many times , a procedure, wh ich has been in use in India from the days of Susmta.

The second section dea ls with interactions in sc ience, especially concen trating on mathe matics, astronomy, and med ic ine . It is we ll known that Indians invented the concept of zero and place value, and it got transmitted to the West through the Arabs. Many different techniques fo r mul tiplicati on and

divi s ion of large numbers also diffused from India to the Arabs, and to central Asia. The one c losest to the current method is ca ll ed " kapatasandhi " in Sanskrit and "za rb-e-shakaba" in Arabic AI-Khwarizmi (820 AD) presents thi s method in hi s boo k Arithmetical treati se. Many s imilar tec hniques were used in China a lso late r. In al gebra, tec hniques for so lving linear, quadratic and indeterminate equati ons were deve loped in India from s ixth to e leventh centuries AD. E lements of geometry are found in all anc ient c ivili zations, inc luding Greece, Ind ia , Egypt , and China. In India , these are genera lly cons idered to date the late r part of the Ved ic pe ri od , through the Sulvasutras. Some o f the so luti ons in it anti c ipate the Pythagorean theorems. These, as we ll as simil ar theorems from China, we re based on rectang les rather than triang les. However the rigorously an alytica l nature of Euc lid ' s e lements is not to be found in Indi a, whic h seem to be res tricted to empiri ca l results . There were, however, many remarkable results in areas and diagonals of triang les, quadrilate ra ls, etc., and finding the value of s ins . Arab geometry, in general, owed much more to Greece than to India . As far as China is concerned, most sc ho lars inc line to the belief that in many areas of geo metry, C hinese arri vecl at so lutions independentl y. A common feature to all these c ivilizati ons was the use of " mag ic squa res" used for occu lt purposes.

All the anc ient c ivili zation s namely, Egypt , Babylon , Iran , India , Central Asia , and C hina deve loped astrono my in process of working out ca lendars for agri cultural needs. The li st of the star groups, used to chart out movement of the sun and the moon in the sky are ca ll edn akshatra in India, hsiu in China, and the zodi ac in Babylon. Despite the commonalties, each had its own fea tures and had independentl y worked out techniques fo r predicting ec l ipses, e tc . However, contacts between the civili zat ions had enriched the ir common approaches. To quote a re lative ly la te exampl e, the Yantras construc ted by Ja i Singh in the late seventeenth century are c lea rly based 0 11 si milar constructions of U lug Beg in centra l As ia. Contacts between Indi a and Arabs began with the trans lation of Sanskrit texts into Arabic, start ing from so mewhere in AD 770. The ca lcul ati on of the planetary tab les in AI-Khawarizmi 's Zij fo ll ow those o f the Brahmasphutu Siddhanla. The method s of calculation of the apparen t di ameters of the sun and the 11100n, to exp lai n the ec lipses in the Arab and centra l As ian systems a lso followed prior

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work by Brahmagupta . Astro labes appear to have originated in Central Asia and reached India through the Arabs as well as directly. India was a major center of maritime trade and a ll voyages from East to West and reverse passed through Indian ports, There was thus a very strong traditi on of exchange of maritime info rmati on. The Arab nav igati onal techniques and star charts were strongly indebted to India, and vice versa. When Vasco de Gama arri ved in Zanzibar after rounding the Cape of good hope in Afri ca, he found Indian sailors and pilots from Surat based there. Not much is known about contacts in the area of nav igati onal techniques between Indi a and C hina, though Indian vesse ls are known to have called regu larl y at Chinese and South East As ian ports.

Another majo r area of interacti on, espec ia ll y during the medieval period was in a lchemy. Though it is now customary to consider alchemy as a delusionary epi sode, it was the fo re-runner of chemi stry and many advances in chemi stry and medic ine can be credited to it. According to Needham, a lchemy though based on a wrong hypothes is, accumul ated valuable knowledge in experimentati on, laboratory techniques, and products. Its objecti ve in a ll cultures was the understanding of the process of growth and change, curing of di seases, and improving health and longevity. In both , Ind ia and China, the roots of a lche my goes to really anc ient periods. The Arab, Pers ian and Centra l As ian systems were e ffec ti ve ly deri vati ves of these two, as well as major contributi ons from Egypt and Baby loni a. Esoteric e lements in alc hemy in particul ar owes much to Tantric tradit ions as well as to Tao ist princ iples from China.

Perhaps the area, which benefited the most fro m interactions, was medic ine, both for India and the other countries. In Ayurveda. Indi a had an ex traordinaril y effec tive med ical system, which was not surpassed in any part of the world till the rise of modern medicine in the twentieth century. The highly deve loped hygienic systems of the Indu s culture, includ ing drai ns, water supp ly, public baths, etc., betoken a hi gh level of know ledge abou t d iseases and remedies. T here appear to have been medical contacts between Ind ia and ancient Greece, with the Persians acting as intermediaries. Wi th C hina a lso the interact ion goes back to the days of antiquity. Historical records speak of a Chi nese surgeon Hua To (c. AD 190-265). There is no known predecessor of Hua To in China and no successor for more than a

thousand years. Since surgery fl ouri shed in India during time of Hua To, it seems reasonable to conclude that he must have learned hi s art from thi s country. Fa Hsien (c.AD 400) is reported to have translated a few Indi an med ica l treati ses also along with Buddhi st re lig ious books, and free state health services were establi shed in C hina after hi s time, as in Indi a. Hsuan Tsang (AD 629-664) translated the Ashtanga Hridaya of Vaghbhata into C hinese. T here was also a substanti a l transmi ss ion of herbal pharmacopeal info rmati on. W hile the concept of marmas (ex treme ly de licate nerve po ints) and siravedha (pi erc ing of vesse ls) in Ayurveda is different from the concept of acupuncture po in ts in C hinese medic ine, there are a lso s ignificant points of correspondence .

Even more important than the C hinese influence was the interact ion with Arabi a and Centra l As ia in medic ine which resulted in the Unani system of medic ine, whi ch is still wide ly used in the sub­continent. Initi a ll y, Ayurved ic medic ines were based mostl y on pl ant resources, and Arabi c and Central As ian medic ines we re more based on mineral resources. The Unani and to a lesser ex tent , the Siddha systems in tegrated these two pharmacopoea . Innumerable medical treati ses were translated into Pers ian and Arabic from Sanskrit and other Indi an languages and vice ve rsa. Most of the Muslim rulers in Indi a encouraged these interact ions and some were even practic ing phys ic ians the mselves. A ll the th ree sys tems, Ayurveda, Unani and S iddha are in use in Ind ia today , and s igni ficant amount of research in these fi e lds is also go ing on. T he use of various calc inated meta ll ic and mineral powders and preparations of mercury in medic ine owe their origin to prev ious alc hemical techni ques, and initi a ll y there was considerable overlapping between a lchemy and medicine'. The practice of tinn ing copper cooking vesse ls to reduce tox ic ity is cons idered to have reached Ind ia fro m central Asia .

T he three areas of India, C hina and central Asia were s igni ficant centers of craft based product ion, and after the Arab conques ts, they also became sign ificant patrons of art and consumers of finished products. A great deal of transfer of technology and exchange of craft men occurred, some vol un tary and some not. Major techno logies, whi ch were transmitted include, paper, pri nting, meta lwork and ceramics, glass, text iles inc ludi ng dyes, weapons des ign and production, hydraulic engi neeri ng and irrigation , and

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architectural styles. Paper technology seems to have been transmitted from China to India via Nepal , and to Islamic countries via Samarkhand from where it came to Kashmir, providing an alternate route to India. Many centers in Indi a, including Gorakhpur, Ali gunj , Patna, Dharbhanga, Brahmapur, etc. , became well known as centers of paper producti on. Printing came to India from China, mainl y for printing the images of Buddha on paper or silk ; but printing of literary works did not take off till almost the co loni al era. Metals technology in India was well developed, especially those of iron and steel, and zinc products. The major metallic product of ex ternall y acquired technology appears to be kharsin, a copper-nicke l­antimony alloy used for bell s, gongs, mirro rs, and arrowheads. It is kn own by di ffe rent names as well , and appears to have ori ginated in China and transmi tted to India via central Asia. Co lored and glazed tiles and pottery can be traced to central As ian influences, though glazed ware has been known to India fro m Indus times . Indian , both imported and exported glassware, glass objects of beauty with inl aid gold wire, glass bangles, drinking bowls. hookah bases, jars, bottl es, etc., were ava il ab le, especiall y from Mughal times.

Agricul tural technology, food preservati on techniques , etc., also benefited from cultural ex­changes. The Persian wheel, avail able in India since Islamic times was a major boost to irrigati on. Though canals and tanks for irri gati on have been kn own in India since ancient times the quanaf technique of underground tunnels fo r water, brought from Central Asia or Iran, caught on onl y in the Sind region to draw water from the raised bed of the Indus ri ver. Horticultural tec hniques such as , grafting came to India from Central Asia. Many kinds of sherbets (coo led drinks) and sweet preparations also are parI of the Islamic legacy. The techniques of garden layout also used improved practices from the Islamic (mainly Central As ian and Iranian) regions, though ornamental gardens were known in Indi a from the ti me of the Buddha or even earl ier.

India was a maj or center for cotton technology since ancient times. Indian cotton tex til es appear to have been exported to the Roman empire in the first century AD in quantiti es so large that the Roman Senate introduced legislat ion res tricting the imports due to foreign exchange diffi cul ties ! Extremely fine cotton cloth fro m India was costli er than silk . India had cotton gin with double roll ers. (there is some dispute about whether these were geared or not) and efficient carding devices using a bowstring and mallet. With thi s much technology and quali ty of products, it is surpri sing to see that lany sc holars have agreed that the sp inning whee l (c harkha) is not indigenous to Ind ia, and was imported fro m Persia or centra l Asia. More research needs to be done in thi s directi on. Printing of' cloth , dye ing tec hn iq ues, different kinds of loo ms, etc., ha ve a ll benefited from exchanges or technology despite considerable experti se ava il able in the country.

The book is thus a treasure house of in fo rmati on on va ri ous aspects of the I'm it fu I interacti ons that India has had since ancient times with our neighbors. Apart from its sc ientific value, it should serve us as a correcti ve against chauvini sm whi ch is unfortunately preva lent today. The papers in the book are we ll wr itten and free fro m convoluted jargon. The editor, a we ll kn own ex pert in the area of the hi story of science, has contributed general overv iew paper in each secti on , whi ch is very in formative. Altogether, thi s is a book of ma jor importance in f ie ld of hi story of sc ience . The steep pri ce or Rs 1700/- however, may make it inaccess ible to the ind ividua l buyer. It would be useful if a condensed version conta in ing some of the major papers, or an ab ri dged ed ition cou ld be brought out at a lower pri ce.

S MOHAN National Insti tu te of Science, Technology and Developillent Studies, Dr K S Kri shnan Marg.

New Del hi I 100 12, Ind ia