Tag: Varāhamihira

I have posted some articles on the advanced concepts of Hinduism, some of them are over 5000 years old.

I had recently delivered a lecture on Quantum, Hinduism and the unlocking of natures secrets through Gayatri.

As I was lecturing a senior scientist from a reputed Institution was so upset that when I was proving the inadequacy of Science especially Newton, in explaining many physical events both atomic and in Astrophysics,he interrupted me that None should speak ill of Newton.

My reply from the podium was that when I am talking Vedas and about Shankaracharya, Newton does not come anywhere near and asked the gentleman to wait till I complete the lecture.

I continued with the arguments in the lecture.

I shall deal with the details of the lecture in a separate post.

It is a different matter that the gentlemen met my friend and informed he shall read Sanskrit and Shankara before talking about these issues.

Now let us see in this post what our Vedas and ancient texts say on Laws of Motion,Gravity?

Quote:

The words gravity and gravitational pull are generally translated into Indian
languages as “GURUTVA AKARSHANA SHAKTI”. The word ‘Gurutva’ means ‘mass’
and ‘Aakarshana’ means ‘attractive pull’. The very name indicates that the ancient
Indians observed some relation between the mass of a body and the gravitational pull.

The Taittiriya branch of Krishna Yajurveda says –




 



 
This means, the sun is holding the earth and the heaven in the space. The sun has
the power of attraction (kristheeh) and shines without interruption.
The word “Kristhee” in the above sentence is derived from the root “krish” which
has no other meaning, but attraction. Saying that the sun is holding the earth in the space
through his power of attraction, implies that the earth also is a body with a different type
of force of attraction. Otherwise, if the sun is like a magnetic ball and the earth is like an
iron ball, they would have collided with each other long back. The same idea is reflected
very clearly in the following famous Sloka of Varahamihira (6th century AD)

….

The ball of the earth which is made up of the five fundamental elements, is placed
in the center of a cage, which is made up of the stars of the galaxy and hence it is hanging
in the sky, like an iron ball in the center of a cage of magnetic balls.

The word “Panchabhoota Maya” in the above Sloka is important.

In the context of the solar system, our ancestors did not see the earth as a simple
mass of mud. The globe of earth, the oceans, the air and the clouds around it put together,
is treated as “Bhugola”.

Bhaskaraacharya (12th century AD) made this very clear in his “Goladhyaya” of
Siddhanta Siromani. ….

The Surya Siddhanta is one of the earliest doctrines or traditions (siddhanta) in archaeo-astronomy of the Hindus. Its original version is by an unknown author. It describes the archeo-astronomy theories, principles and methods of the ancient Hindus. This siddhanta is supposed to be the knowledge that the Sun god gave to an Asura called Maya. Asuras were enemies of the Deva, the Gods of Hindus. Asuras were believed to be residents of the nether worlds.

Significant coverage is on kinds of time, length of the year of gods and demons, day and night of god Brahma, the elapsed period since creation, how planets move eastwards and sidereal revolution. The lengths of the Earth’s diameter, circumference are also given. Eclipses and color of the eclipsed portion of the moon is mentioned. This explains the archeo-astronomical basis for the sequence of days of the week named after the Sun, Moon, etc. Musings that there is no above and below and that movement of the starry sphere is left to right for Asuras makes interesting reading.

Varahamihira in his Panchasiddhantika contrasts it with four other treatises, besides the Paitamaha Siddhantas (which is more similar to the “classical” Vedanga Jyotisha), thePaulisha and Romaka Siddhantas (directly based on Hellenistic astronomy) and the Vasishta Siddhanta. Citation of the Surya Siddhanta is also found in the works of Aryabhata…

The table of contents in this text are:

1. The Mean Motions of the Planets^{[notes 1]}
2. True Places of the Planets
3. Direction, Place and Time
4. The Moon and Eclipses
5. The Sun and Eclipses
6. The Projection of Eclipses
7. Planetary Conjunctions
8. Of the Stars
9. Risings and Settings
10. The Moon’s Risings and Settings
11. Certain Malignant Aspects of the Sun and Moon
12. Cosmogony, Geography, and Dimensions of the Creation
13. The Gnomon
14. The Movement of the Heavens and Human Activity.

Trignometry.

The Surya Siddhanta contains the roots of modern trigonometry. It uses sine (jya), cosine (kojya or “perpendicular sine”) and inverse sine (otkram jya) for the first time, and also contains the earliest use of the tangent and secant when discussing the shadow cast by a gnomon in verses 21–22 of Chapter 3:

Of [the sun’s meridian zenith distance] find the jya (“base sine”) and kojya (cosine or “perpendicular sine”). If then the jya and radius be multiplied respectively by the measure of the gnomon in digits, and divided by the kojya, the results are the shadow and hypotenuse at mid-day.

In modern notation, this gives the shadow of the gnomon at midday as

and the hypotenuse of the gnomon at midday as

where  is the measure of the gnomon,  is the radius of the gnomon,  is the shadow of the gnomon, and  is the hypotenuse of the gnomon.

Citations.

Laws of Motion Gravity Hinduism

Surya Siddhanta wiki

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