Embelished Claims

A friend sent this video. 

I wrote back to him : Thanks for this interesting talk – the arundhati and vashist stars were very thought provoking ! But atleast one of the claims is embellished – Vasco de gama did not seek out to ‘discover india’ as trade with india had been going on from europe since before Christ and after, via the Greek and then Roman empires. When the Roman empire declined, Indian traders turned their attention to south east asia where the sphere of Indian influence became large. Where Europe was concerned, Arabs and after them, Ottomon Turks dominated the trade with India, the Far East and China, via the Red Sea and sold in Europe primarily through Venetian traders.

Other European powers wanted to cut in on the lucrative spice trade, and many naval expeditions were launched to reach and directly secure sources of the spice trade. It was in this context that the columbus and vasco de gama expeditions were mounted. Vasco de Gama found the route around africa to reach india bypassing the red sea route controlled by the Turks. The pilots (the guides for the route) for this long expedition were european, moorish, and finally indian. There is no record of indian vessels ‘escorting vasco de gama’s ship from africa to india’.

India’s ancient maritime history isnt that well researched but atleast I have never seen references to India having dominated the world trade in spices even as it played a very important role in it.

India has produced great world religions that offer insight and understanding of the cosmos and man’s place in it. It has had sophisticated political and administrative traditions in parts of her history. It has many great innovations and discoveries to her credit. But it is perhaps our traditon of living within our environmental means that is the greatest techology of all. Therefore this trend common in social media of daily producing lies and half lies (that the unsuspecting among us circulate) to brag about some supposed aspect of indian domination makes one wonder why we lack self confidence to state what the facts tell us.