Indian astronomy

"The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest, and that from which the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and even the Jews derived Hindus their knowledge."

"That Hindu astronomical lore about ancient times cannot be based on later back-calculation, was also argued by Playfair’s contemporary, the French astronomer jean-Sylvain Bailly: “The motions of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the [modern] tables of Cassini and Meyer. The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as that discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also the Arabs.”"

"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang."

"“The observations on which the astronomy of India is founded, were made more than three thousand years before the Christian era. (…) Two other elements of this astronomy, the equation of the sun’s centre and the obliquity of the ecliptic (…) seem to point to a period still more remote, and to fix the origin of this astronomy 1000 or 1200 years earlier, that is, 4300 years before the Christian era”."

"All this at least on the assumption that Playfair’s, Bailly’s and Rajaram’s claims about the Hindu astronomical tables are correct. Disputants may start by proving them factually wrong, but should not enter the dispute arena without a refutation of the astronomers’ assertions. It is something of a scandal that Playfair’s and Bailly’s findings have been lying around for two hundred years while linguists and indologists were publishing speculations on Vedic chronology in stark disregard for the contribution of astronomy.... One of the earliest estimates of the date of the Vedas was at once among the most scientific. In 1790, the Scottish mathematician John Playfair demonstrated that the starting-date of the astronomical observations recorded in the tables still in use among Hindu astrologers (of which three copies had reached Europe between 1687 and 1787) had to be 4300 BC. His proposal was dismissed as absurd by some, but it was not refuted by any scientist."

"Since the 1780s, Western researchers (Playfair, Bailly, Jacobi) have noticed data in Indian astronomy, both astronomical tables and stray astronomical references in religious and epic texts, which, through the millennial clock of the precession, indicate a surprisingly high chronology for Vedic civilization... Against the consistent and straightforward high-chronology interpretation of the astronomical evidence, the AIT has never offered a consistent interpretation of these data supporting its own low chronology. All we have is piecemeal attempts to deconstruct one datum or another, weakening its logical impact or dismissing it as imprecise.... In spite of this poverty in alternative explanations, nobody seems to be bothered by this inability to refute the stubborn astronomical evidence or to domesticate it somehow into the prevalent paradigm....Disputants may start by trying to prove Playfair and Bailly factually wrong. Indeed, I think it is high time to recheck their argumentation on the basis of all their original data. Meanwhile , it remains something of a scandal that Playfair's and Bailly's findings have been lying around for two hundred years while linguists and Indologists were publishing speculations on Vedic chronology in stark disregard for the contribution of astronomy."

"The astronomical lore in Vedic literature provides elements of an absolute chronology in a consistent way. Moreover, it is encouraging to note that the astronomical evidence is free of contradictions. There would be a real problem if the astronomical indications had put the Upanishads earlier than the Rg-Veda, or Kalidasa earlier than the Brahmanas, but that is not the case: the astronomical evidence is consistent. Inconsistency would give support to the predictable objection that these astronomical references are but poetical fabulation without any scientific contents. However, the facts are just the opposite. To the extent that there are astronomical indications in the Vedas, these form a consistent set of data detailing an absolute chronology for Vedic literature in full agreement with the known relative chronology of the different texts of this literature. They contradict the hypothesis that the Vedas were composed after an invasion in ca. 1500 BC. Not one of the astronomical data in Vedic literature confirms the AIT-based low Vedic chronology.... Indeed, the whole corpus of astronomical evidence is hard to reconcile with the AIT, and has been standing as a growing challenge to the AIT for two centuries, i.e. from before the AIT had even been thought up. A convincing refutation would require an alternative but consistent (philogically as well as astronomically sound) interpretation of the existing astronomical indications that brings Vedic literature down to a much later age. But so far, such a reading of those text passages has not been offered. There is as yet no astronomical information which puts the Vedas at an AIT-compatible date."

"“By adding the hymn counts of the ten books of the Rig-Veda in different combinations, we obtain numbers that are factors of the sidereal periods and the five synodic periods (…) The probability of this happening is about one in a million. Hence whoever arranged the Rig-Veda encoded into it not only obvious numbers like the lunar year but also hidden numbers of great astronomical significance.”"

"If we exclude the possibility of every astronomical notice in Vedic literature being a record of ancient tradition, which is extremely unlikely, we can say that there is strong astronomical evidence that the Vedas are older than B.C. 2500. They might be as old as B.C. 4000. There is some support for this date, but it is not convincing."

"Whither by day depart the constellations that shine at night, set high in heaven above us? Varuṇa's holy laws remain unweakened, and through the night the Moon moves on in splendor."

"Urge thou these heroes on to slay the enemy, brave Thunderer! in the fight with swords. Even when hid among the tribes of Sages numerous as stars."

"Like a dark steed adorned with pearl, the Fathers have decorated heaven With constellations. They set the light in day, in night the darkness. Bṛhaspati cleft the rock and found the cattle."

"Sage Maruts, may we be the drivers of the car of riches ful I of life that have been given by you. O Maruts, let that wealth in thousands dwell with us which never vanishes like Tisya from the sky."

"May those five Bulls which stand on high full in the midst of mighty heaven, Having together swiftly borne my praises to the Gods, return. Mark this my woe, ye Earth and Heaven."

"They yoke the red horse who moves around those who stand. The lights (or constellations) shine in Heaven (1.6.1)."

"With the Maruts, Indra, let your friendship be. Then you will defeat all enemies. The three times sixty Maruts, increasing you, are holy like a mass of rays (or stars) (VIII.96.7-8)."

"The Maruts are visible from afar, like the heavenly ones with the stars (I.166.11)."

"Like Heaven with the stars, Agni appears along both firmaments (II.2.5).7"

"Agni is first established here by the ordainers, the holy invoker, to be worshipped in the sacrifices. The bearer of truth, most wise, he appears as Heaven with the stars (IV.7.1,3)."

"They gleam with armlets as the heavens are decked with stars, like cloud-born lightnings shine the torrents of their rain. Since the strong Rudra, O Maruts with brilliant chests, sprang into life for you in Pṛśni's radiant lap."

"The seers of ten rays first thought out the sacrifice. May they direct us in the breaking of the dawn. The dawn opens up the night with her red horses, with the great light of the luminous sea of milk (II.34.12)."

"Seven yoke the chariot that has one wheel. One horse conveys it who has seven names (I.164.3)."

"Our fathers who drove up the wealth made of light, by Indra at the end of the year they destroyed Vala. By the truth they made the Sun rise in Heaven (X.62.2- 3)."

"Pushan was born in the start of the path, in the path of Heaven, in the path of the Earth. Both beloved stations he circles to and from with knowledge (X.17.6)."

"May Mitra, Varuna, the sun, the destroyer, the portents from the earth and the atmosphere, and the planets moving in the sky (divicarā grahāh) bring well-being to us. (AV 19.9.7)"

"May the planets belonging to the moon, the sun, and Rāhu bring well-being. May the deadly comets and the Rudras of the keen brightness bring well-being. (AV 19.9.10)"