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Ancient India Famous people
Panini
Panini was born in Shalatula, a town near to Attock on the Indus river in present day Pakistan. The dates given for Panini are pure guesses. Experts give dates in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th century BC and there is also no agreement among historians about the extent of the work which he undertook. Panini was a Sanskrit grammarian who gave a comprehensive and scientific theory of phonetics, phonology, and morphology. Sanskrit was the classical literary language of the Indian Hindus and Panini is considered the founder of the language and literature. It is interesting to note that the word "Sanskrit" means "complete" or "perfect" and it was thought of as the divine language, or language of the gods.
A treatise called Astadhyayi (or Astaka ) is Panini's major work. It consists of eight chapters, each subdivided into quarter chapters. In this work Panini distinguishes between the language of sacred texts and the usual language of communication. Panini gives formal production rules and definitions to describe Sanskrit grammar. Starting with about 1700 basic elements like nouns, verbs, vowels, consonants he put them into classes. The construction of sentences, compound nouns etc. is explained as ordered rules operating on underlying structures in a manner similar to modern theory. In many ways Panini's constructions are similar to the way that a mathematical function is defined today.
Aryabhata
Aryabhata was born in 476 AD, was the first astronomer of India. His book, the Aryabhatiya, presented astronomical and mathematical theories in which the Earth was taken to be spinning on its axis and the periods of the planets were given with respect to the sun. He gifted 0 "zero" to the world.
Ashoka
Asoka was a famous king of Ancient India. He won several battles to widen his kingdom. After the historic Kalinga war he turned to budhism. Ahimsa and non- voilance became the most important pillar of state policy. Humanitarian ethics of Buddhism influence all his actions. Ashoka got his edicts inscribed on monolithic stone pillars adorned with strikingly beautiful animal capitals. One of these - the lion capital found at Sarnath near Benaras - has been chosen as the state emblem of the Republic of India. Ashoka endeavoured to set up an enlightened government for a genuine welfare state.
Samudra Gupta
Samudra Gupta extended the boundaries of the Gupta empire considerably. The pillar inscription at Allahabad provides a detailed account of his conquests. His military campaigns ranged from Nepal in the North to modern Tamilnadu in the South, from Assam in the East to the borders of present day Afghanistan in the West. The unification of the greater part of the land was his major achievement. His coins portray him as a patron of arts and one of his images is that of a Lute player.
Chandragupta Maurya
India attained political unity for the first time under Chandragupta. He laid the foundations of a powerful empire. Chandragupta was, according to folklore, assisted by a Brahmin called Vishnugupta, also known as Kautilya or Chanakya, who is credited with the authorship of Arthashastra the famous work on ancient Indian statecraft. Meghasthenes, a Greek traveller visited India at this time and although only fragments of his travelogue - Indica are available to us, his account supplements the information provided by the Arthashastra and the other literary sources about governance and social life during the Maurya period.
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