astronomy

[Michael Witzel]

Dr. Elst had asked me about  astronomical evidence in the Veda. Since I
started the point and as it is of general interest, a brief answer to all:

Astronomical evidence has intrigued people since the late  19th cent.
There is a paper  of c. 1880 about eclipses in the Bohemian (Czech) Academy
of Sciences which I read as as student. Fine, but the textual references
are just too vague (Svarbhaanu).

The recent ideas (S.Kak, etc.) can be dismissed with just one sentence:

        Texts cannot be dated according to their *oldest* materials, but
according to their
        general level, and as far as redaction is concerned, according to
their late(st)
        materials.

For example, the KRttikA (Pleiades) evidence from Shatapatha Brahm. ("They
do not move from the eastern direction") could point to the 3rd mill. BCE
--- but unfortunately the S'B is an IRON AGE text throughout, just about
pre-Buddhist.  Which puts its smack into the first half of the first mill.
BCE.

Items such as the KRttikA sentence are REMINISCENCES or school wisdom. You
cannot put me into the early 15th cent CE (or still earlier)  when I say:

"Looking at my digital watch, I noticed that the sun rose at 6:30". The
digital watch gives me away as a person of the late 20th c., not of the
14th, where one still could speak of the sun actually rising (and not of
the earth turning eastwards)... Kak etc. would have me as a medieval
person... strange, for natural scientists...

(The matter of KRttikAs not moving from the East actually is more
complicated as a look at any astronomical computer program will show).

MW.


At 10:31 +0100 12/1/99, Koenraad Elst wrote:
I'll be interested to hear  about your reasons why astronomical evidence
does "not apply".

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Michael Witzel                          Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies
Harvard University                  www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs
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