astronomy

[N. Ganesan]

Kaplan, The nothing that is: a natural history of zero, OUP, 1999
" The third moral is the most significant for our tale, and it is
that the Greek influence on Indian culture of this time is clear.
The appearance of poppy seeds in Archimedes' sequence and here just
can't be a coincidence; but if you miss it, how dismiss the structural
similarities between the two accounts? In fact, if you look anywhere
in Indian astrology, astronomy or mathematics you'll see traces of
Greek forebears: Hindu names of the zodiacal signs and various
astronomical terms are Greek loan-words (kendra from kentron, center,
for example, and lipta for minute from lepton); and they wrote their
fractions in the same peculiar way the Greeks did, without a
separation line. Yet once again, the best evidence is structural, such
as their theory of planetary motion, in texts from 400 AD, being the
Greek epicyclic one. And look to error for the surest tell-tale of
truth: the ratio of longest to shortest day is given as 3:2 in early
Hindu astronomy - a ratio wholly wrong for all but the most northern
latitudes of India, but correct for Babylon, and adopted by the
Greeks. You will find a grudging acknowledgement of the Greek source
of Indian astronomy and its accompanying mathematics in the Surya
Siddhanta, apparently delivered by the Sun to a gentleman named Maya
Asura in 2,163,102 BC. The Sun instructs him to `go to Romaka-city,
your own residence. There, reincarnated as a barbarian (thanks to
a curse of Brahma), I will impart the science of astronomy to you.'
Romaka: that is, Roman, meaning the Greeks of the Roman or Byzantine
empire; and barbarian: the Greeks again, who `indeed are foreigners',
as the astronomer Varahamihira wrote around 550 AD, `but with them
astronomy is in a flourishing state'."

Is it correct that astrological terms like kendra, lipta, ...
are in Sanskrit only after Alexander? What about Vedic?

Regards,
N. Ganesan

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com