Facts About India

Varanasi is said to be the oldest and continuously inhabited city in the world. Situated on the banks of great Ganges, it was earlier known as Benaras. Lord Buddha had visited this sacred place in 500 BC. It may sound ironical but India was the richest country on earth at one point of time. Fondly known as ‘The Golden Bird’, India lost that prestigious title when British arrived in India in the early 17th century. Even legendary Christopher Columbus, the great explorer had heard of India’s richness and wanted to visit this place.

Many of you will not be surprised to know that the value of ‘Pi’ was discovered in India during the early 6th century. Budhayana calculated its value and gave us the concept that was later known as Pythagorean Theorem. That clearly says that Europeans lagged behind in discovering such calculations. Time taken by earth to orbit around sun was first calculated by the great Bhaskaracharya. The exact figure was 365.258756484 days that was validated by astronomer Smart hundred of years later.

India also gifted trigonometry, algebra and calculus to the world. By as early as 11th century, Sridharacharya had given us quadratic equations. Indians were much ahead of other civilizations in terms of big numbers like 10 to the power of 53 whereas the maximum Romans and Greeks discovered was 106. One of the least known facts about India is that the art of Navigation originated in India in the river Sindhu 6000 years ago. The Sanskrit word Navgatih gave origin to the word Navigation. Used with permission: Factsaboutindia.org