Book Reviewed: Science in Ancient India by Melissa Stewart.

A brief history of ancient India for kids This is a book for kids about the scientific contributions of ancient India, which sounds interesting but also has serious errors. In the opening section, it states that “around 3,500 years ago, a group of light-skinned people called Aryans came to India through passages in the Hindu Kush mountains. Unlike the Dravidians, the Aryans were wandering herders. Over the next five hundred years, the Aryans slowly moved southward until they reached the Ganges Valley in central India. As the Aryans invaded, they pushed the Dravidians farther and farther south. Eventually, the Aryans began to settle down and farm.” This has strong racial overtones and subordination of the Indian population. 19th-century European scholars proposed this to support colonization of India by the British Empire, which claimed that Indo-European-speaking "Aryans" invaded and conquered the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) around 1500 BCE. Suggested that this invasion led to the decline of the IVC and the rise of Vedic culture in northern India. In fact, there's no clear evidence of violent invasion or large-scale destruction in Indus Valley sites. Recent genetic evidence, such as Rakhigarhi DNA studies, shows no marker of a sudden, large-scale migration or invasion. However, there is interesting section that describes the work of Indian astronomers like Brahmagupta who described the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter long before telescope was invented in the 1600s. The work of Aryabhata describes planetary movements in great detail. It is amazing that this scientific was known long before Europeans claimed to have discovered them.