I have my son’s friend, who is also my friend, is in Australia(most of my son’s friends are my friends too< despite two decades difference in Ages).
On Reading one of my posts on the predictions of Hinduism especially n regard to Technology, he remarked,
“We have a habit of saying, after a New Thought in Modern Science has been brought forth, we say that it is already there in Hinduism and never say
that before the discovery of new theories and if we are serious about our heritage, we should say what all have been said in our texts much before the
present day findings.
I replied that agree and the reason people do nt know about our findings s that we do no read our texts and some of our thoughts look outrageous ,
especially on Astrophysics, Time, we tend to call them as Fantasies!
Also that one of the purposes of Ramanis’ blog is to post as much information as I know on these subjects.
There is also another accusation about Hinduism that People interpolate facts in the ancient texts and say that the modern findings are found in our
texts.
Untrue; wherever possible I have been provoking texts to prove that there is no interpolation.
I am posting now on the Speed of Light as found in the Rig Veda.
This s also doubted that there is an interpolation.
I shall disprove this.
“Sayana ,Sāyaṇācārya 1315- 1387) was an important commentator on the Vedas. He flourished under King Bukka I and his successor Harihara II,
in the Vijayanagar Empire of South India.
He was the son of Māyaṇa, and the pupil of Vishnu Sarvajna and of Samkarananda.
More than a hundred works are attributed to him, among which are commentaries on nearly all parts of the Veda; some were carried out by his pupils, and some were written in conjunction with his brother Mādhava or Vidyāraṇya-svāmin
.
Hs works were edited by Max Mueller.
Whale commenting on The Rig Veda, Sayana explains about the Speed/Velocity of Light’
“Regarding Speed of Light:
There are 2 quotes. I will try to reproduce as given in the book:
taraNirvishvadarshato jyotiShk^Ridasi sUrya | vishvamAbhAsi rochanam |
Oh Sun! (You) overwhelm all in speed, visible to all, source of light. (You) shine pervading the Universe.
tathA cha smaryata yojanAnAM sahasram dve dve shate dve cha yojane | ekena nimiShArdhena kramamANa namo&stu te ||
It is remembered (that) Salutations to Thee (sun), the traveller of 2.202 yojanas in half a nimiSha.
Source:
Rg-veda-samhitA, maNDalam 1, sUktam 50, mantraH 4 (6000 DCE) sAyanAchArya’s commentary (14th century AD)
”
- “tatha ca smaryate yojananam. sahasre dve dve sate dve ca yojane ekena nimishardhena kramaman”
- तथा च स्मर्यते योजनानां सहस्त्रं द्वे द्वे शते द्वे च योजने एकेन निमिषार्धेन क्रममाण नमोऽस्तुते॥
- “[O Sun,] bow to you, you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha.”.
- Explaining this,
- Vartak in his Scientific Knowledge in the Vedas (1995, p. 95).[3]
- 1 yojana is said to comprise either 4 or 8 krosha (a cry or shout, or the range of the voice in calling); and 1 krosha (or goruta ~ as far as a cow’s lowing may be heard, or a bull’s roar) may represent either 1000 or 2000 daNDa (a rod or staff), and 1 danda represents 1 pauruSa (a man’s length) which equals 1 dhanvantara (bow-string) or dhanu (bow). 1 yojana measures either 4,000 or (more likely) 8,000 dhanus. Assuming that 1 paurusha is 6 ft long, then 1 yojana must represent a distance of about 14.6 km (or about 9 miles, as suggested by Monier-Williams).
- nimesa means shutting the eye or winking, and as a measure of time it is a wink of the eye or a moment. The Arthashastra (c. 300 BC) defines 1 nimesa as 1/360,000th of a day and night, i.e. 0.24 seconds.
- Given that 1 yojana is between 14.6 and 16.4 km, 2,202 yojanas must represent between 32,149 and 36,113 km. Half a nimesha is 0.12 seconds. Sayana thus gives the “speed of the Sun” as between 267,910 and 300,940 km/sec, i.e. the same order of magnitude as the speed of light at 299,792 km/sec.”(wiki)
. The units are well-known.
For example, the Indian epic “Mahabharata”, conservatively dated to 400 BC – 400 AD, defines 1 nimesha to be equal to 16/75.3 seconds; 1 yojana is about 9 miles.
This is the same as Modern Science on the Speed of Light: in fact more precise !
There s objection to this that Sayana says this about the movement of the Sun and not Light.
My point is that Hinduism speaks in allegories.
If they were speaking directly then with so much of calculations they would not be saying that the Sun has Seven Horses, which are the colors of
Light, VIBGYOR.
The Sun is an allegory for Light Energy( At the same time a Personal God, shall be posting later on this)
So Sayana was referring to Light.
What are the chances of Interpolations/Fraud?
”
Substituting in Sayana’s statement we get 186,536 miles per second. Unbelievable, you’d say! It cannot be the speed of light.
Maybe it refers to the speed of the sun in its supposed orbit around the earth.
But that places the orbit of the sun at a distance of over 2,550 million miles.
The correct value is only 93 million miles and until the time of Roemer the distance to the sun used to be taken to be less than 4 million miles. This interpretation takes us nowhere.
What about the possibility of fraud? Sayana’s statement was printed in 1890 in the famous edition of Rigveda edited by Max Muller, the German Sanskritist.
He claimed to have used several three or four hundred year old manuscripts of Sayana’s commentary, written much before the time of Roemer.
Is it possible that Muller was duped by an Indian correspondent who slipped in the line about the speed? Unlikely, because Sayana’s commentary is so well known that an interpolation would have been long discovered.
And soon after Muller’s “Rigveda” was published, someone would have claimed that it contained this particular “secret” knowledge.
The fact that the speed in the text corresponds to the speed of light was pointed out only recently by S.S. De and P.V. Vartak.
Also a copy of Sayana’s manuscript, dated 1395 AD, is available.
Further support for the genuineness of the figure in the ancient book comes from another old book, the Vayu Purana.
This is one of the earliest Puranas, considered to be at least 1,500 years old. (The same reference is to be found in the other Puranas as well.)
In Chapter 50 of this book, there is the statement that the sun moves 3.15 million yojanas in 48 minutes.
This corresponds to about 10,000 miles per second if considered as speed of light, and 135 million miles for the distance to the sun,
if considered as the speed of the sun. Sayana’s speed of light is exactly 18 times greater than this speed of the sun! Mere numerology?
For the rationalists these numbers are a coincidence.
Given the significance of these numbers, they’d look very carefully at the old manuscripts of Sayana’s commentary.
Citation.
http://www.hinduhistory.info/speed-of-light-discovery-by-vedic-scholar-sayana/
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