how did india help in 500BC withh the discovery of matter?

Question

About matter discovery and who did it

Answer 1

Indian philisophers did develop a concept of the atom, which in case of the Indian Buddhist philosophical school of "atomism", seems to come close to today's Quantum theories.

"Atomism"

"The concept of the atom in ancient India derives from the classification of the material world in five basic elements by Indian philosophers. This classification existed since Vedic times (c. 4500 BC). The elements were the earth (prithvi), fire (agni), air (vayu), water (jaal) and ether or space (aksha). The elements were associated with human sensory perceptions: smell, touch, vision, taste and ether/space respectively. Later, Buddhist philosophers replaced ether/space with life, joy and sorrow."

"Ancient Indian philosophers believed that all elements except ether were physically palpable and hence comprised of minuscule particles. The smallest particle, which could not be subdivided, was called paramanu in Sanskrit (shortened to parmanu), from parama (ultimate or beyond) and anu (atom). Thus, "paramanu" literally means "beyond atom" and this was a concept at an abstract level which suggested the possibility of splitting atoms, which is now the source of atomic energy. However, the term "atom" should not be conflated with the concept of atom as it is understood today."

"The 6th century BC Indian philosopher Kanada was the first person who went deep systematically in such theorization. Another Indian philosopher, Pakudha Katyayana, a contemporary of Buddha, also propounded the ideas of atomic constitution of the material world. All these were based on logic and philosophy and lacked any empirical basis for want of commensurate technology."

"Science and technology in ancient India : Atomism", Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_ancient_India#Atomism

"Derives from the word "atom" is used in two distinct divisions: the atoms of physical science, and that of philosophy. Atomism is traditionally associated with the latter, where philosophers have argued that the basic building blocks of reality, and which make up absolutely anything that exists, are incredibly tiny objects that do not have physical parts, cannot be split, divided or cut, and which are either point-sized (sizeless) or they have a tiny size. Those that have a tiny size are called Democritean atoms. This was the case for the Greek theories of atomism. Indian Buddhists, such as Dharmakirti and others, also contributed to well-developed theories of atomism, and which involve momentary (instantaneous) atoms, that flash in and out of existence. The tradition of atomism leads to the position that only atoms exist, and there are no composite objects (objects with parts), which would mean that human bodies, clouds, planets, and whatnot all do not exist."

"The Indian atomistic position, like many movements in Indian Philosophy and Mathematics, starts with an argument from Linguistics. The Vedic etymologist and grammarian Yaska (ca. 7th c. BC) in his Nirukta, in dealing with models for how linguistic structures get to have their meanings, takes the atomistic position that words are the "primary" carrier of meaning - i.e. words have a preferred ontological status in defining meaning. This position was to be the subject of a fierce debate in the Indian tradition from the early Christian era till the 18th century, involving different philosophers from the Nyaya, Mimamsa and Buddhist schools."

"In the pratishakhya text (ca. 2nd c. BCE),[citation needed] the gist of the controversy was stated cryptically in the sutra form as "saMhitA pada-prakr^tiH".[1] According to the atomist view, the words (pada) would be the primary elements (prakrti) out of which the sentence is constructed, while the holistic view considers the sentence as the primary entity, originally "given" in its context of utterance, and the words are arrived at only through analysis and abstraction."

"These two positions came to be called a-kShaNDa-pakSha (indivisibility or sentence-holism), a position developed later by Bhartrihari (c. 500 AD), vs. kShaNDa-pakSha (atomism), a position adopted by the Mimamsa and Nyaya schools (Note: kShanDa = fragmented; "a-kShanDa" = whole)."

"The ancient “shAshvata-vAda” doctrine of eternalism, which held that elements are eternal, is also suggestive of a possible starting point for atomism (Gangopadhyaya 1981)."

"There has been some debate among scholars as to the origin of Indian atomism; the general consensus is that the Indian and Greek versions of atomism developed independently. However, there is some doubt on this, given the similarities between Indian atomism and Greek atomism and the proximity of India to scholastic Europe, as well as the account, related by Diogenes Laertius, of Democritus "making acquaintance with the Gymnosophists in India".[2] In any event, the earliest schools of Indian atomism (in the linguistic tradition), as well as certain epistemological positions such as the materialist Uddalaka, were developed before Greek positions associated with philosophers such as Leucippus and Democritus."

"The atomist position had transcended language into epistemology by the time (around 100 AD) that Nyaya-Vaisesika, Buddhist and Jaina theology were developing mature philosophical positions."

"The Nyaya-Vaisesika school developed one of the earliest forms of atomism; scholars date the Nyaya and Vaisesika texts from the 6th century BC to the 1st century BC. Like the Buddhist atomists, the Vaisesika had a pseudo-Aristotelian theory of atomism. They posited the four elemental atom types, but in Vaisesika physics atoms had 24 different possible qualities, divided between general (intensive and extensive properties|extensive) properties and specific (intensive) properties. Like the Jaina school, the Nyaya-Vaisesika atomists had elaborate theories of how atoms combine. In both Jaina and Vaisesika atomism, atoms first combine in pairs (dyads), and then group into trios of pairs (triads), which are the smallest visible units of matter. This is an interesting analogy to keep in mind when considering the fact that in the modern elementary particle theory, pairs or triplets of quarks combine to create most typical forms of matter."

"Indian atomism", Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism#Indian_atomism

Answer 2

Well for a start there was no such place as India.That nation came into being well Britain united several states in India.500BC was a long time ago.Our own earliest scholar is Pythagoris. Doubt if a scholars in early times even envisaged matter