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The English chemist and physicist John Dalton (1766-1844) is the man credited today with developing modern atomic theory. However, an understanding of atoms was actually formulated 2,500 years before Dalton by an Indian sage and philosopher, known as Acharya Kanad.
The name “Acharya Kanad” was given to him after the theory of small particles he espoused. Born in 600 B.C. in Prabhas Kshetra, near Dwaraka in Gujarat, his real name was Kashyap.
The story goes, while on a pilgrimage to Prayag, Kashyap witnessed thousands of pilgrims littering the streets with flowers and rice as offerings at a temple. Kashyap, who was fascinated by small particles, began collecting the rice. A crowd gathered around to see the stranger picking up the grains from the street. He was asked why he was gathering what even a beggar wouldn’t touch. He replied that individual grains themselves are worthless, but a collection of some hundred make up a meal; the collection of many meals would feed a family; ultimately, the whole of mankind consists of such families. Thus, even a single grain of rice is as important as all the valuables and riches in the world. Since then, people began calling him “Kanad,” as “Kan” in Sanskrit means “the smallest particle.”...