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Contribution Of Hindu Scriptures To Archaeoastronomy

By Subhash Kak
Swarajya, swarajyamag.com
January 14, 2017

Snapshot

o The continuing analysis of the astronomical references
in Hindu texts imply that astronomical ideas developed in
India in stages.

o These stages can be seen in the different layers of
the Vedic texts, the Brahmanas and the Vedanga Jyotisa.

Astronomers were interested in information related to
eclipses, supernovae and other phenomena in the ancient
world. Such phenomena are described in Indian texts, but
there has been a long-standing controversy about the
chronology of these texts. Although traditional history
places the bulk of the Vedic texts in the period of the
fourth to the second millennium BC, the chronology
proposed by Max Muller and generally adopted in the West
dates Rigveda to 1200-1000 BC, the other Vedic texts to
1000-800 BC and the Brahmanas to 800-600 BC.

Influenced by this scheme, Vedanga Jyotisha, the Vedic
manual of astronomy, which has an internal date of about
1370 BC, has been ignored by the historians of astronomy,
and it has been arbitrarily assigned to a period one
thousand years later. Vedic books do refer to several
early astronomical events that take us to various times
in the broad period of 4000-2000 BC. For example, there
is the well-known statement in the Satapatha Brahmana
that the Krttikas (Pleiades) do not swerve from the east,
which was true of about 2000 BC.

Likewise, the earliest nakshatra lists start with the
Krttikas, and it is generally accepted that these lists
count the naksatras with the rising on the vernal
equinox, but the critics have discounted such evidence
arguing that we cannot be certain that the naksatras were
assigned the same part of the sky as in later Indian
astronomy. In this article, we show that it is possible
to, unambiguously, date the rites described in the
Brahmanas, to the second millennium BC. This means that
the Max Muller chronology must now be rejected. For the
archaeoastronomer, this allows the placing in context of
a vast amount of astronomical information.

The Brahmanas recognise that the speed of the sun varies
with the seasons. The year-long rites of the Brahmanas
were organised with the summer solstice (visuvant) as the
middle point. There were two years: the ritual one
started with the winter solstice (mahavrata day), and the
civil one started with the spring equinox (visuva). Vedic
rites had a correspondence with different stages of the
year and, therefore, astronomy played a very significant
role in that society. These rites counted the days up to
the solstice and in the latter half of the year, and
there is an asymmetry in the two counts. This is an
astronomical parameter, which had hitherto escaped notice
that allows us to date the rites to no later than the
second millennium BC.

Several aspects of the astronomy described in the
earliest texts of India have recently become known. Most
of that material was based on the astronomy of the fire
altars. The fire altars are made in a manner so that
their areas correspond to the lengths of the lunar or the
solar years. As there is a difference between the two
types of year, an increase in the area of the fire alter
that equals the difference is prescribed in its second
construction. Finally, there is a prescription that 95
such altars be built in a sequence defining a 95-year
cycle of intercalation. Recent research from a variety of
fields have led to a new understanding of the chronology
of Vedic literature.

Archaeologists and geologists have established that
Sarasvati, the mightiest river of the Rigvedic era, which
ran down to the sea during that period, is the same as
the Ghaggar-Hakra. Since there existed flourishing
settlements on the banks of the river prior to about 1900
BC, and the fact that we see small settlements on the dry
bed which date to the middle of the second millennium BC,
it is clear that the river dried up around 1900 BC,
perhaps due to a major tectonic upheaval. As the Rigvedic
hymns speak of Sarasvati flowing to the sea, the only
conclusion open to us is that the Rigvedic era should be
considered to be prior to c. 2000 BC.

The traditional dating of the Rigveda, considered to
belong to an era prior to the Mahabharata war, is
considerably earlier than this period. According to
Aryabhatta, the Mahabharata war took place c. 3100 BC,
and according to Varahamihira, it took place c. 2400 BC.
It appears that the discrepancy between the two
traditions arose due to conflating interpretations when a
calendrical review occurred sometime before Aryabhatta .
On the other hand, according to a French team that
surveyed the dried Sarasvati bed, the river dried up much
before 1900 BC, and during the Harappan era (2600-1900
BC), the region was irrigated by the means of canals. If
this were true, then the era of the Rigveda would come
even closer to one of the traditional dates.
Nevertheless, to be as conservative as possible, we take
c. 2000 BC as the closing of the Rigvedic age. The
astronomy of this era has been described recently.

The two halves of the year

Aitreya Br. 4.18 describes how the sun reaches the
highest point on the day called visuvant and how it stays
still for a total of 21 days with the visuvant being the
middle day of this period. In Pancavimsa Br. (Chapters 24
and 25), several year-long rites are described where the
visuvant day is preceded and followed by three-day
periods. This suggests that the sun was now taken to be
more or less still in the heavens for a total period of
seven days. So it was clearly understood that the
shifting of the rising and the setting directions had an
irregular motion.

SB 4.6.2 describes the rite called gavamayana, the "sun's
walk" or the "cows' walk." This is a rite which follows
the motion of the sun, with its middle of the visuvant
day.

Yajurveda (38.20) says that the ahavaniya or the sky
altar is four-cornered since the sun is four-cornered,
meaning thereby that the motion of the sun is
characterised by four cardinal points: the two solstices
and the two equinoxes. The year-long rites list a total
of 180 days before the solstice and another 180 days
following the solstice. Since this is reckoning by solar
days, it is not clearly stated how the remaining four or
five days of the year were assigned. But this can be
easily inferred.

Note that the two basic days in this count are the
visuvant (summer solstice) and the mahavrata day (winter
solstice), which precedes it by 181 days in the above
counts. Therefore, even though the count of the latter
part of the year stops with an additional 180 days, it is
clear that one needs another four or five days to reach
the mahavrata day in the winter. This establishes that
the division of the year was in the two halves of 181 and
184 or 185 days. Corroboration of this is suggested by
evidence related to an altar design from the Satapatha
Brahmana.

This article continues at:

https://swarajyamag.com/science/contribution-of-hindu-scriptures-to-archaeoastronomy

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

http://bit.do/jaimaharaj

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