Astronomia Vedica Vi
Astronomia Vedica Part IV
Astronomy, ” the science of the Heavens “, was well developed by the Indians and noted scholar Eirik L Harris remarked that ” the Vedic culture was very rich in astronomical thinking.” The Winter Solstice was the base of all year-long sacrifices and the Vedic knowledge of both winter and summer solstices were accurate. There is a verse in the Rig Veda stating that Winter Solstice was in Aries. ” The period of the Rig Veda was therefore 6500 BC and it is possible to date the Rig Veda thus ” remarks Eirik L Harris. Astronomy and Mathematics were inspired by Vedic practices.
Another scholar B.V.Subbarayyappa remarked that ” Indian mathematics too owes its primary inspiration to Vedic practices. The Shulba sutras, part of another Vedic auxiliary called the Kalpa sutras, deal with the construction of several types of brick altars and in that context with certain geometrical problems including the Pythagorean theorem, squaring a circle, irrational numbers and the like. Yet another Vedic auxiliary, Metrics (chandah), postulated a triangular array for determining the type of combinations of ‘n’ syllables of long and short sounds for metrical chanting. This was mathematically developed by Halayudha who lived in Karnataka (10th Century) into a pyramidal expansion of numbers. Such an exercise appeared six centuries later in Europe, known as Pascal’s triangle. Vedic mathematics and astronomy were pragmatic and integrated with Vedic religio-philosophical life.”
“During the three centuries before and after the Christian era, there were new impulses. Astronomy became mathematics-based. In the succeeding centuries,