Often, when society looks at India, they see first the overwhelming poverty: the slums, the lack of sanitation, the starving children…
But what many of us forget or never knew to begin with is just how much India has contributed to our world as a whole.
In addition to never having invaded a country in her last 10,000 years of history, India has given us thousands of concepts, ideas, and practices- some that affect every single person on earth’s daily lives.
Here are just a few…
- Approximation of Pi
- Place value system and zero
- Algebra, trigonometry, calculus
- The world’s first university
- Sanskrit is the mother of all European languages, and, according to Forbes, the most suitable language for computer software
- Ayurveda- the earliest school of medicine
- Chess
- The first e-mail
- Yoga
So the next time you look to India, I challenge you to think not of the extreme poverty or overpopulation, but to what she’s given us, and how different all of our lives would be without her.
