Indian prime minister claims genetic science existed in ancient times

[Judge]

Religious texts can be used for spiritual symbolism. And for personal or spiritual introspection. On matters of science, tho it is ever - evolving , I am a firm believer in the power of empirical , testable, proofs. To quote Martin Luther King Jr, " Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzingly obscurantism."


Regards.

The Sushruta Samhita and other texts he mentions - on plastic surgery and all are not religious texts.
They are historical texts, these philosphers and doctors wrote their experiments and discoveries in a book.

 

[wolfschanzze]

Religious texts can be used for spiritual symbolism. And for personal or spiritual introspection. On matters of science, tho it is ever - evolving , I am a firm believer in the power of empirical , testable, proofs. To quote Martin Luther King Jr, " Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzingly obscurantism."


Regards.

What you say about science and religion are applicable to Abrahamic religions not to Dharmic religions,We always equated science with God and Hinduism is all about science.
Sushruta Samahita is a book on surgeries done in ancient India, He invented cataract surgery,Rhino plasty and many other surgeries which are done even today.
The britishers copied his Nasal Reconstruction technique and claimed as their own invention when he was performing those surgeries in 6th century B.C.
Sushruta Samhita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[SarthakGanguly]

India is the origin of all knowledge, all spirituality, all religions, and all languages. India has always been a knowledge superpower. Ancient India invented space travel, nuclear power, and computer chips.

Modi-ji will lead India to re-discover these ancient secrets. I have no doubt that India will quickly surpass China to become a superpower by 2020!

Indian prime minister claims genetic science existed in ancient times | World news | The Guardian

Indian prime minister claims genetic science existed in ancient times

Hindu nationalists have long propagated their belief that many discoveries of modern science and technology were known to the people of ancient India. But now for the first time an Indian prime minister has endorsed these claims, maintaining that cosmetic surgery and reproductive genetics were practiced thousands of years ago.

As proof, Narendra Modi gave the examples of the warrior Karna from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata and of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha.

“We can feel proud of what our country achieved in medical science at one point of time,” the prime minister told a gathering of doctors and other professionals at a hospital in Mumbai on Saturday. “We all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realise that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb.”

Narendra Modi delivers his address in New Delhi. Photograph: Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
Modi went on: “We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.”

While much of Modi’s speech was devoted to how to improve healthcare facilities in modern India, he also dwelt on ancient India’s “capabilities” in several fields.

“There must be many areas in which our ancestors made big contributions,” he said. “Some of these are well recognised. If we talk about space science, our ancestors had, at some point, displayed great strengths in space science. What people like Aryabhata had said centuries ago is being recognised by science today. What I mean to say is that we are a country which had these capabilities. We need to regain these.”

This is not the first time that Modi has publicly articulated such ideas. But he did so earlier as chief minister of Gujarat state, and not as prime minister. He also wrote the foreword to a book for school students in Gujarat which maintains, among other things, that the Hindu God Rama flew the first aeroplane and that stem cell technology was known in ancient India.

Modi’s claims at the Mumbai hospital initially went unreported in the Indian media, except on the website rediff.com.

But on Monday night Headlines Today TV talk show host Karan Thapar focused on it in his primetime programme, with opposition politicians criticising Modi. The speech has also been posted on the prime minister’s official website. No Indian scientist has come forward as yet to challenge him.

Of course it existed. Gravity also existed.
Only it may NOT have been properly understood and codified.

If people take every fantasy tale as fact

I read a wonderful line from an archaeologist's interview, it went something like this -
'The mythologies provide the first clue in our field.'

 

[scrumpy]

The guardian is up to its usual mischief. The speech is from a year ago when he was at the opening of a hospital at Pune has been taken out of context and mis-translated. The quote starts at about the 8:00 minute mark.

If you understand Hindi you can understand that he says that a culture which can imagine a being with a elephant's head on a human body must have had awareness of things like plastic surgery. He says that there is knowledge in the old books which have been lost and are waiting to be explored.

 

[wolfschanzze]

Indeed, but i will leave a mark even after my death in the pages of science, and that grants me immortality.

If ISIS takes over your immortality is finished and your name erased from history

 

[SQ8]

The question is not of whether plastic surgery was carried out.. but why the hell would someone take an elephant's head and sew it on a man??

Perhaps the movie "Hercules" by Dwayne Johnson might provide a guideline on how to separate recorded events from myth and religion. If the PM claims that Ganesha could have been given plastic surgery.. it is also possible that perhaps that there was a pious person by that name who would have used the Elephant's head as some symbol.. and so the legend formed.

 

[Gandhiv]

The question is not of whether plastic surgery was carried out.. but why the hell would someone take an elephant's head and sew it on a man??

Perhaps the movie "Hercules" by Dwayne Johnson might provide a guideline on how to separate recorded events from myth and religion. If the PM claims that Ganesha could have been given plastic surgery.. it is also possible that perhaps that there was a pious person by that name who would have used the Elephant's head as some symbol.. and so the legend formed.

actually medical research is moving ahead to a future where animal's organs/body parts can be used to replace defective parts of humans.
research are ongoing may be in couple of decades we will see the results.

 

[Iggy]

He should have said organ transplant instead of plastic surgery.. Might have made some sense

 

[Bang Galore]

The question is not of whether plastic surgery was carried out.. but why the hell would someone take an elephant's head and sew it on a man?? .

Why not? It's for the same reason that causes you to approach the idea with bewilderment. It is outlandish, almost all claims of divinity have some outlandish assertion behind them. No point in it being within the powers of a normal human. The human mind usually accepts divinity only when it cannot comprehend, within normal parameters, the story that is put forward.

If the PM claims that Ganesha could have been given plastic surgery.. it is also possible that perhaps that there was a pious person by that name who would have used the Elephant's head as some symbol.. and so the legend formed

Not all myths have a definite human correlation but quite a few do & what you say is quite plausible in such myths.

 

[SQ8]

actually medical research is moving ahead to a future where animal's organs/body parts can be used to replace defective parts of humans.
research are ongoing may be in couple of decades we will see the results.

Oh that it is, and it could also have certain implications on the idea that mankind is essentially cyclic. Take for e.g. civilizations where the concepts of sewage and running water were common but then they were wiped out only to be replaced by very cavemen like existence.

 

[SarthakGanguly]

Oh that it is, and it could also have certain implications on the idea that mankind is essentially cyclic. Take for e.g. civilizations where the concepts of sewage and running water were common but then they were wiped out only to be replaced by very cavemen like existence.

Reminds me of Einsteins quote on nuclear warfare. This generation with nukes, the next with bows and arrows.

 

[SQ8]

Why not? It's for the same reason that causes you to approach the idea with bewilderment. It is outlandish, almost all claims of divinity have some outlandish assertion behind them. No point in it being within the powers of a normal human. The human mind usually accepts divinity only when it can not comprehend, within normal parameters, the story that is put forward.



Not all myths have a definite human correlation but quite a few do & what you say is quite plausible in such myths.

See, an elephant-being may not be so implausible as much as the idea of it being sewn over. Yet, when characters like these exist

One can imagine that if similar deformations were carried out then the writings would portray it as a divine or supernatural being.

 

[Gandhiv]

Oh that it is, and it could also have certain implications on the idea that mankind is essentially cyclic. Take for e.g. civilizations where the concepts of sewage and running water were common but then they were wiped out only to be replaced by very cavemen like existence.

in event of a catastrophe all the advances can be lost within span of years, e.g: WWIII can essentially degrade humankind to stone age era, and the recovery might take couple of millenniums.

 

[Bang Galore]

See, an elephant-being may not be so implausible as much as the idea of it being sewn over. Yet, when characters like these exist

One can imagine that if similar deformations were carried out then the writings would portray it as a divine or supernatural being.

That may be more true of the monkey people in the Ramayana epic but unlikely to have attached itself so strongly to an individual, especially one connected with other Gods. Most probably, direct creation of story.

 

[SQ8]

That may be more true of the monkey people in the Ramayana epic but unlikely to have attached itself so strongly to an individual, especially one connected with other Gods. Most probably, direct creation of story.

Well here is the thing. If there is a belief in the supernatural.. and the connection to spiritual beings.. I believe it was Zakir Naik or someone who found an Islamic connection there as well.

An odd story to recount here , but on a part curiosity/part obligatory trip to a certain "healer" here with someone.. I found it interesting that when the person under "treatment" recounted their experience and described the tormentor.. the description given was of a rather hairy.. and Monkey-ish looking being.. whom the "healer" identified as a Jinn from Hanuman's tribe/lineage.. rather odd.. and again...depends on how you look at it.. but essentially provided a basis for Muslims to essentially conform to the events of the Mahabharta as fairly plausible and divine/supernatural in nature.