Fw: astronomy

[Koenraad Elst]

I entirely agree with Prof. Witzel that we have better things to do than
look up things which interested list members can easily find for themselves,
or than answering all too elementary questions.  But the question of the
date of the Vedanga Jyotisha is not below a professional indologist's
dignity: it is fundamental, consequential and as yet not the object of a
consensus.

That a pre-Iron Age text cannot be in shloka form, is a circular argument,
based on a low chronology of known shloka texts.  Maybe even the
Shatapatha Brahmana is a counter-example: if its astronomical reference (to
ca. 2400 BC) can be a reminiscence, conversely its iron references can be
part of
interpolations.  While the existence of astro-chronological reminiscences or
antedatations remains conjectural, no philologist will deny that there are
plenty of well-attested cases
of later interpolation into older texts.  But that is not the point I want
to pursue here.  The Vedanga Jyotisha would, by its astro-chronological
information, be dated to the dawn of the Iron Age (ca. 1300 BC) anyway.

The really challenging point is: so far, all astro-chronological information
in Vedic literature, indirect and obscure as well as direct and explicit,
points consistently to a higher chronology.  That is why astronomers both
Western (since
the late 18th cent., e.g. John Playfair 1790) and Indian have attributed a
high chronology to Vedic
literature.  To my knowledge, nobody has ever countered that by pointing out
even one astro-chronological hint in the texts confirming a low chronology.
The answer is invariably to deny the astro-chronological information, either
to deny that it has anything to do with astronomy (possible in some cases,
as the astronomical terminology is mostly terms with ordinary meanings to
which a technical meaning is given by Vedic astronomy), or to deny, with
Romila Thapar and our friend Michael Witzel, that this information pertains
to the time when the text was composed.  But this implies that the whole
Vedic literature has a bizarre tendency to systematically antedate itself
(as if in a grand conspiracy to fool future indologists), and to talk about
ancient stellar configurations all while disregarding the actual
configurations visible to the authors themselves.  This strange tendency is
not in
evidence in Hindu astronomical writings which have been firmly dated, like
Aryabhatta's.

Now, this is where the Vedanga Jyotisha comes in.  This is a manual for
priests concerning the astronomical aspects of their work.  Obviously, it
deals with the actual stellar configurations, for it tells its users where
in the sky they should look to see if the time has come for this or that
ritual.  Moreover, it does not deal in poetic metaphors, but in technical
astronomy.  In verse 6, it locates the winter solstice at ca. 23°20 of
sidereal Capricorn, 47° from its present position.  Taking into account the
precession of 1° in 71 years, this indicates a date of ca. 3337 years ago.
An inaccuracy of 1° makes a difference of 71 years less *or more*, but given
the nature of the text, it is likely that Lagadha tried to be precise.

Of course my argument is not "monolateral".  I have written on
textual, linguistic, astronomical and other aspects of the problem.  If I
have neglected some aspects, well, I can't do everything and I welcome new
input from different disciplines.  But I do at least attempt to posit things
which do not fly in the face of established evidence.  Now, in
this case, though the astro-chronological aspect of the VJ is only one
aspect, it should count for more than nothing, and in an astronomical text
it is easily the most important aspect.  If it is monolateral to study only
the contents of an astronomical text, I should think it even more harmfully
monolateral to study only the philological aspect of the text while
disregarding its explicit contents.  Those who claim a VJ date which flies
in the face of the text's own astro-chronological information should explain
why Lagadha gave his readers wrong information, and that on a topic which
was quite elementary and on which any of his colleagues could have shown him
to be wrong merely by pointing at the sky.

For all I know, the philological argument is that the VJ has been written in
a form and language which are clearly post-Vedic, part of the classical
Sanskrit tradition in which every high-born youngster was trained during,
well, the classical period.  I see no reason to deny that post-Vedic date
for the VJ.  But it follows that the classical and post-Vedic Sanskrit
tradition has to be dated as being in existence no later than the time
indicated by the VJ solstice.  Which is apparently difficult to reconcile
with allotting to the Rg-Veda a date in the same time-bracket.  Ergo, the
date of
the Rg-Veda will have to be moved deeper into the past.

Incidentally, dating the VJ to the first centuries AD, as Dr. N. Ganesan
proposes, conflicts not only with the astronomical evidence, but also with
the well-known fact that post-Alexandrine astronomical and astrological
texts have borrowed many terms and concepts from Hellenistic astronomy.
These are not in evidence in the VJ.

Yours sincerely,
Koenraad Elst
http://members.xoom.com/KoenraadElst/