Indian Physics: Outline of Early History

Abstract

Historians of science are generally unaware of the contributions of India to physics. The main reason for this is that very little research has been done on the subject in the recent past, a consequence of the fact that there are few history of science departments in Indian universities. The objective of this paper is to present a preliminary outline of early history of physics in India. The schools of Vaisheshika and Samkhya, that were interested in general principles of atomic theory and cosmology, are discussed. In particular, ideas on atoms and molecules, the nature of sound, causality, universals, cosmology, uniform and non-uniform motions are described.