Our ancestors discovered America, not Columbus, says MP Education Minister

Parmar said that “historians systematically undermined India’s strengths”, and because of “false facts, a negative image of India was presented to the world”.

He said that our “ancestors were advanced in every aspect of knowledge, skill, and capability”, and “we should free ourselves from inferiority complexes and strive to advance by embracing superior ideas”.

According to him, a “falsehood that was unnecessarily taught in India was that Columbus discovered America”.

“This was irrelevant to Indian students. If they were going to teach this, they should have also taught about the atrocities committed by those who came after Columbus, how they destroyed the indigenous societies, who were nature worshippers and sun worshippers, and how they were massacred and converted,” Parmar said.

Parmar said that an Indian sailor “went to America in the 8th Century and built several temples in San Diego, which are still documented in a museum there and preserved in libraries”.

“When we went there, we helped develop their culture, the Maya civilization, by integrating with it, which is India’s way of thinking and philosophy that should have been taught to students… If something needed to be taught, it should have been correctly taught – that our ancestors discovered America, not Columbus,” Parmar said.

Vasco da Gama wrote that Chandan’s ship was bigger than his own – not just a little bigger but two to four times the size of his ship. Vasco da Gama followed Chandan, the Indian trader, to India. However, historians wrongly taught Indian students that Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India and India itself,” Parmar said.

Parmar then said that for almost 1,200-1,300 years, a significant falsehood based on geographical misconceptions was perpetuated around the world.

The minister said that Polish astronomer Copernicus’s theory “that the Sun is stationary, and what Galileo said — that the Sun is stationary and all the planets, including Earth, revolve around it — were already stated in our ancient texts”.

“Thousands of years ago, those who wrote the Rigveda had already mentioned that the moon revolves around its parent planet, earth, and earth revolves around its parent, the sun. This means our ancestors had already considered the sun as fixed, with earth, the moon, and all other planets revolving around it,” Parmar said.

He said that he read an “interesting historical fact” that “in the 12th Century, when the city of Beijing was established, its designs and architecture were created by an architect from what is today Nepal but was then part of India”.

“This architect, named Bal Bahu, was known for making statues of Buddha and Ram and designing grand structures. He was invited to design Beijing. Even today, a statue of Bal Bahu is erected in Beijing by the government, recognising his contributions,” Parmar said.

The minister also spoke about the Olympics and India’s ancient history with stadiums. “While the Olympics have been around for 2,800 years, developing the concept of stadiums and collective games, our country has evidence of stadiums that are even older. In the excavations at the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, stadiums were found that date back… well before 2,800 or even 3,000 years ago. This shows that our ancestors were already familiar with sports and could build stadiums, proving that they were advanced in many areas.”