11. The origin of silk production and weaving is ancient and clouded in legend. The industry undoubtedly began in China, where, according to native record, it existed from sometime before the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. For many centuries the Chinese zealously guarded the source and methods of production of silk, but by the 1st millennium BC they had begun trading silk cloth abroad. Within a few centuries, caravans were regularly carrying silk to India, Turkistan, and Persia. According to legend, in about 140 BC, sericulture as well as silk spread overland from China to India. By the 2nd century AD India was shipping its own raw silk and silk cloth to Persia. (Japan, too, acquired and developed a thriving sericulture a few centuries later. (Source: Britannica Encyclopedia) Textile
14. Shorter of the two great epic poems of India, (the other being the Mahābhārata),the Rāmāyaṇa was composed in Sanskrit, probably not before 300 BC, by the poet Valmiki, and in its present form consists of some 24,000 couplets divided into seven books. The poem enjoys immense popularity in India, where its recitation is considered an act of great merit. Many of its translations into the vernacular languages are themselves works of great literary merit, including the Tamil version of Kampaṉ, the Bengali version of Kṛttibās, and the Hindi version, Rāmcaritmānas, of Tulsīdās. Throughout North India the events of the poem are enacted in an annual pageant, the RāmLīlā, and in South India the two epics, the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, even today make up the story repertoire of the kathākali dance-drama of Malabar. The Rāmāyaṇa was popular even during the Mughal period (16th century), and it was a favourite subject of Rājasthānī and Pahārī painters of the 17th and 18th centuries. The story also spread in various forms throughout Southeast Asia (especially Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand); and its heroes, together with the Pāṇḍava brothers of the Mahābhārata, were the heroes of traditional Javanese-Balinese theatre, dance, and shadow plays. Incidents from the Rāmāyaṇa are carved in bas-relief on many Indonesian monuments—for example, at Panataran in eastern Java. (Source: Britannica Encyclopedia) Literature
15. Literature flourished during the Gupta period. Kalidasa (c.380-450 CE), who is often referred to as the ‘Shakespeare of ancient India’ wrote what is usually judged the best Indian literary effort of any period. His most famous work is Shakuntala. As in all of Kālidāsa's works, the beauty of nature is depicted with a precise elegance of metaphor that would be difficult to match in any of the world's literatures. Literature
22. Compass Two Indian astronomers of repute, Aryabhatta and Varahamihira, having accurately mapped the positions of celestial bodies, developed a method of computing a ship's position from the stars. A crude forerunner of the modern magnetic compass was being used around the fourth or fifth century AD. Called MatsyaYantra, it comprised an iron fish that floated in a vessel of oil and pointed North. (Abstract of text from http://indiannavy.nic.in/history.htm).
25. The earliest mention and description of various planets and other phenomena in the sky are found in the Vedic texts where the sun was given the central position in our solar system. Mathematical inventions led to discoveries in the study of the stars and planets. Indian astronomers also calculated the diameters of the earth and moon. Astronomy
26. One of the most famous Chinese astronomers, Zhang Heng, mapped the movements of the sun, moon and planets. By the year 2300 BC, astronomy observatories were used to observe solar eclipses and comets. Zhang Heng and the astronomers who came after him kept records of these events, allowing modern astronomers to track the paths of comets over the centuries. Astronomy
27. Astronomy Zhang Heng invented the armillary sphere which consists of a bracket and a four-“chi”-diameter hollow copper ball with 28 constellations carved on it. The polar axis, north and south poles, horizontal rings and the meridian can be seen on the armillary sphere.
28. The forging of wrought iron seems to have reached its zenith in India during the Gupta period. The earliest large forging is the famous iron pillar at New Delhi dated by inscription to the Gupta period of the 3rd c. AD at a height of over 7 m and weight of about 6 tons. Apart from the dimensions another remarkable aspect of the iron pillar is the absence of corrosion which has been linked to the composition, the high purity of the wrought iron and the phosphorus content and the distribution of slag. Metallurgy
29. Metallurgy Ancient Chinese bronze ware fall into three types: ritual vessels, weapons and miscellaneous objects. Ritual vessels refer to those objects employed by aristocrats in sacrificial ceremonies or audiences. These vessels include food containers, wine vessels, water pots and musical instruments. The miscellaneous objects refer to bronze utensils for daily use. In ancient China, the making of bronze ware was dominated by the imperial families and aristocrats. The possession of such wares was regarded as a status symbol.
32. The philosophy of acupuncture is rooted in the Taoist tradition which goes back over 8000 years. The people of this time period would meditate and observe the flow of energy within and without. Approximately 1000 BC, during the Shang Dynasty, hieroglyphs showed evidence of acupuncture where bronze needles were excavated from ruins. Medicine
