While studying in Texas, in the 1990s, for a MS degree, I received a job offer from a company called SRD in Phoenix, Arizona. This was after getting zero interviews after mailing out 250 copies of my bio-data/resume in response to newspaper ads.
SRD said it was a three month project at a large company, during which if I did well, I will get be employed full term (with health insurance). So I joined them. I knew Phoenix was a few degrees hotter than Texas, which was about hot as Madras, so I wasnt worried.
Boy, was I wrong. It was the middle of June - the start of summer in USA. Phoenix daily temperatures went upto 110 F, which I had occasionally experienced in Madras, during the 1980s, with no air conditioning, only ceiling fans.
Phoenix, from the sky - July 2015
But 110 in Phoenix was very different from 110 in Madras. Madras gets a sea breeze around 3pm, the worst heat is from 11am to 2pm. Arizona is a desert, so no sea or sea breeze. The part of Texas I lived in was a valley of a river called Brazos and far greener than Phoenix, and also had air conditioning. Summer days in the US are far longer; the sun sets after 8pm only. Bad in Texas, hellish in Phoenix. The roads which had absorbed heat until 8pm were letting out heat well past midnight. So it felt like 100 degrees F even at midnight. No Indian, even a Madrasi is prepared for that.
It is so hot in Phoenix, I heard that it was illegal to keep a store or business open if the AC broke down. When some of us at work went out to lunch, they drivers of cars opened the car door, turned on the engine and AC, then waited outside for two minutes before stepping in to the car. Hasty people have had the skin of their palms melted by the steering wheels of cars heated up in the midday sun.
For about a month, I didn't have a car, so an Indian colleague gave me a ride. I once asked to be dropped off at a store near my flat around 8pm for some grocery shopping; I said I would walk back home. This is when I discovered that the roads give off heat at night. That mile long walk (sorry, hike with two bags of groceries) was absolutely terrible; worse than most of the times I had fever of 102 or more. Two months later I hiked for a mile down and up the Grand Canyon in Arizona at noon, and it was much more pleasant than the walk back from that grocery store at nearly 9pm.
In September I got a job offer in Seattle, and I was so happy to leave Arizona. Seattle was absolute heaven with lakes and mountains with snow and green green trees and grass as far as the eye could see. It rains or drizzles eight months a year in Seattle and a blue sky is always headline news in the local TV stations, but that didn't bother me for another five years.
I learnt the true pleasure of monsoons and rains and the sea breeze from those brief three months in Phoenix, and the marvelous gift of sunny day and blue skies from my five years in Seattle.
Why all this now? The last two weeks this June feel like that summer in Phoenix. Even with Air Conditioning.
(I wrote this on my Facebook wall on June 17 and it rained for a week after that).
In the Vedic era preceding the Era of the 18 Siddhantas, the
earth was thought to be flat. The Puranas and Smritis mention a mountain Meru,
sacred and gigantic, in the middle of the earth. Deva Loka was on top of this
mountain, the Devas lived on it. Asuras lived beneath our world, in Naraka Loka
or Paatala Loka, also called Vadavaamukha. Meru was surrounded by four
continents, Kuru to the north, Bhadrashva to the east, Bharata to the south and
Ketumala to the west.
Not only Hindus, but Buddhists and Jains also seem to have
accepted this concept. In their religions also, Indra, Brahma etc are
significant divine beings, who live on Meru, which is an immense sacred
mountain.
Meru and continents
The belief is also captured in a beautiful verse in the
Tamil epic, Silappadikaaram:
Translation Salutations (potrudhum) to the Sun
(nyaayiRu); who goes around (valam varudalaan) golden mountain (pon koTu) Meru,
like the wheel (tigiri) of the Chola (“kaaviri naaDan”, Lord of Kaveri
country).
Gola - Earth as Sphere
At some unknown time, astronomers across the world realized
that the earth was a sphere. They also realized that the sky was different from
the space beyond it, and sky and space were also spheres. Perhaps an individual
proposed it; perhaps a group of people discovered it and discussed the idea and
it spread. What literature survives doesn’t mention this historical discovery
or its acceptance. The astronomical texts referred to earth as BhuGola (Bhu is
Earth; Gola means sphere). The sky (kha) was thence called KhaGola; and the
realm of stars (Bha) beyond it, BhaGola.
The astronomers of this period seemed to not bothered to
refute the earlier flat-earth model, but simply remapped some aspects to their
new understanding. So they called or redefined Meru as the North pole ofthe spherical earth (still considered
DevaLoka, Abode of the Devas) and Vadavamukha as South pole (abode of the
Asuras).
The spherical earth presented a new conceptual challenge.
What did the earth stand on? If the earth were a sphere, how did people not
fall off the sides of the sphere? How did people or animals stay put on the
lower half? Would they be upside down? A similar ideological challenge must
have affected Greek and Chinese astronomers. Not until Newton in the 17th
century, was the concept of gravity proposed to explain planetary motion. This
gravity was explained as a property of mass, though why it was so, could not be
explained even by Newton. A generation before Newton, the French philosopher
Rene Descartes proposed a vortex based theory of gravity. Newton’s theory
became the accepted one, until Einstein’s relativistic theory of gravity
overturned it.
Indian astronomers explained this away with metaphors.
Aryabhata compared the spherical earth with a kadama flower,
which has a spherical centre. The buds, of a kadamba flower point outwards and
their stalks point inwards; similarly explained Aryabhata, the legs of men and
land animals and sea creatures point inward (toward the centre of the earth)
and their heads point outward (towards the sky).
kadamba pushpa
Varahamihira used two better metaphors. The spherical earth
is surrounded by a cage of stars, he said, inspiring a vision of a bird in a
spherical metal cage. The earth is able to float in space, like an iron (loha)
ball between two magnets (kantha), he continued. This is a scientific
explanation with metaphors using common objects of his time.
Translation Composed of five elements(pancha mahaa
bhutam), among the cage (panchara) of stars(taara), stands (stoh) the earth(mahee),
as a globe(golaH), like (iva) a ball of iron (loha) between magnets (kaanta-antaH)
Cage of Stars - Taara gana panchara
Varahamihira added that like a lamp’s flame always points
skywards, and any object thrown upwards falls to earth, people also walk about
on earth with their heads skywards and feet on the ground.
Translation The flame (shikhaa) of a lamp(shikhi)
points skywards (gaganam) and a heavy (guru) object (kincit) thrown (kshiptam) skywards
falls back to earth (kshiti); this happens in the lands of men (maanavaanaam) and
asuras (asuraaNaam)
This is as close as we get to an Indian theory of Gravity
from Varahamihira – that heavy things fall to earth naturally.
Newton’s concept gravity is much more ingenious and bold
: it is not about planets but all objects: a brick exerts gravity on another
brick, a tree on another tree, and of course celestial bodies on each other.
But such a concept was not proposed by anyone before Newton, even Galileo or
Copernicus or Kepler, leave alone the ancient Greeks like Euclid or Ptolemy.
Both Aryabhata and Varahamihira then quipped that Devas
living on the north pole (Meru) and Asuras on the south pole (Vadavamukha)
considered the other group as beneath them, punning on geography and social
status.
Whether the general public accepted these explanations or
even heard of them is doubtful. Artists continued to depict the earth as a
lady, Bhudevi in sculpture and painting, and her worship went on as usual. No
one went on pilgrimages to Meru.
The Surya Siddhanta, composed unknown centuries before
Aryabhata and Varahamihira, doesn’t even explain such matters. It talks about
spherical earth, its longitudes and latitudes, the equator, gives
the diameter of the sun and moon, explains calculations of their speed of
revolution around the earth, uses geometry and trigonometry to explain their
shadows and length and duration of eclipses; and gives several algorithms to
calculate, predict, eclipses, star-planet conjunctions etc. Surya Siddhanta is
explained as the revelation of astronomy by Surya Deva to an asura called Maya;
very similar to the revelation of Vedas to the rishis during their meditations.
So the spherical model was conceived, propagated and accepted among astronomers
before composition of Surya Siddhanta. The other siddhantas compared by
Varahamihira also don’t seem to have any explanation.
Was sphericity an idea borrowed from Greeks? It is plausible, maybe even
probable. European writers assume they are, without bothering to prove so. Did
the Greeks borrow the idea from the Babylonians? Again possible, but European
writers don’t even mention this possibility. Can we completely rule out the
possibility that Indians did not discover it on their own? No. Greek and Roman
astronomers were well respected, as Varahamihira states. Romaka (name afted
Rome or Roma) and Paulisa probably Paulus Alexandrinus of Alexandria, are among
the 18 rishis to whom their eponymous siddhantas are attributed. But there are
no books in the Greek language attributed to them. A lot of astronomy and
mathematics attributed to Greeks like Ptolemy, Archimedes and Euclid are not
found in Indian astronomy.
Rotation and Refutation
Aryabhata asserted that the earth rotates and the stars only
seem to revolve around it. He used a metaphor for this also: just like a passenger
in a boat on the Ganga feels like the trees on the shore are moving backward,
rather than that the boat was moving forward, he said, so does the earth rotate
from west to east, but people feel as though the sky and stars rotate westward.
This assertion, was dismissed not only by Brahmagupta and
Varahamihira but even by his ardent admirers and commentators through the
succeeding centuries. Perhaps because he was only a man, not a rishi – hence
his composition was only a manuja grantha.
If Aryabhata’s rotation theory were correct, countered Varahamihira,
in Pancha Siddhantika, Chapter 13, how would any falcon or other bird ever
return to its nest? For the earth would have moved a great distance while the
bird was flying. Flags would always stream westward due to the wind produced by
the very fast moving earth. If the refutation was that earth moves slowly, how
would it revolve such a great distance within a day? Varahamihira stated that the
earth’s circumference is 3200 yojanas, about 25,000km as a yojana is 8km.
Someshvara, an eighth century commentator of Aryabhatiyam, went
much further. If the earth revolved, he said, oceans will flood all the lands,
and tops of trees and castles woud be blown away by the storm of the wind
caused by such a ferocious speed of rotation. So, he concluded, the earth does
not rotate.
So they didn’t understand inertia, or frame of reference for
motion. But given the facts and theories at their disposal, these were
scientific rejections of Aryabhata’s conjecture, not superstitious or
theological objections. This is only discernible to those who study all the
original material; most accounts make it seem that Aryabhata’s rotation
conjecture was scientific and the others stubborn and unscientific in their
rejection.
Historically, this is similar to Lord Kelvin’s rejection of
Darwin’s theory of Evolution, which dated life on earth to 500 million years.
Kelvin, calculated that the Sun composed of Hydrogen, could have a maximum life
of only 300 million years based on chemical combustion of hydrogen to produce
heat. The Sun’s true age was confirmed with Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence,
nuclear physics, Bohr’s atomic model and such associated phenomena in physics
(nothing in biology).
Aryabhata’s rotation conjecture is untenable without a
theory of intertia and Newtonian or even Cartestian gravity. Darwin’s age of
earth and life predictions were untenable without a nuclear theory of the Sun’s
heat generation and subsequent long age of Sun and Earth.
Further Aryabhata and all other Indian astronomers, stated
that the entire celesital sphere, gruhams and nakshatram, revolve around the
earth from East to West, propelled by a celestial wind called pravaha. Here Aryabhata seems to
contradict himself. Either the earth rotates and therefore it appears that
stars revolve; or the stars revolve,
with no need for the earth’s rotation. Can he have both?
Varahamihira’s simple metaphor seemed to suffice for Indian
astronomers. I wonder if European, Arab or Chinese astronomers gave a similar metaphor to explain away spherical
earth.
Consequences of the Spherical
Model
The spherical model of the earth led to the realization that
shadows of the moon and earth cause eclipses. Varahamihira gave a clear
explanation of how and why this happens, with an explicit refutation of the
Rahu story (see link below).
Sphericity was important, perhaps even more so, than gravity.
The development of geometry and triogonometry and understanding about the
regularity of planetary orbits, culminated in the ability to predict eclipses;
and later star-planet conjunctions. India led the world for a thousand years in
this field because of this.
This is also why Lord Napier, a governor of Madras
presidency, came to India to write a history of Mathematics, because he thought
India was the birthplace of mathematics. It is notable that he was the
descendant of John Napier, who invented Logarithms.
They also set Ujjain as the locus of the Prime Meridian (a
role now played by the Greenwich Meridian) and all Indian astronomical
calculations were based on the Ujjain meridian or at the point where the Ujjain
meridian crossed the Equator.
There is an inherent understanding that both the equator and
Ujjain meridian would be each be zero degree – something only Indians could use,
having invented the zero. Arabs borrowed this zero a few centuries after
Aryabhata (around 850 AD, during the time of Abbassid Caliph al Mamun) and
Europeans mainly via Leonardo Fibonacci, a Venetian businessman who learnt it
from visiting Baghdad in the thirteenth century. But the Ujjain meridian
precedes Aryabhata and Varahamihira, as it is a fundamental factor in the Rishi
Siddhantas.
It is an atrocity that these basic scientific concepts,
Indian discoveries to be proud of, are not in our school or college books, and
that most Indian scientists are unaware of these. These are low hanging fruit.
Incredibly beautiful blue sky day... Parrots gliding over the roof... Spring flowers of mango and konrai in bloom... promising a glorious summer...
Streaking through buildings and cellphone towers, the evening sun showcases the thousand shades of green on the leaves of the trees it highlights
Quietly, a million cups of tea and coffee are brewed and sipped, in appreciative meditation, for now ignoring the cacophony of calumny and acrimony that will soon rise in a thousand TV channels
A distant two wheeler engine roars gently through the mostly silent streets, punctuated by the cawing of crows, chirping of other birds, and the chatter of untiring boys playing street cricket
I will deliver a talk titled "Varahamihira's Eclipse Proof" at the Indian Science Festival, Hyderabad, at 11amthis Saturday 21stJanuary 2023. At Nucleus Arena.
காசி விசுவநாதர் கோயில் கோபுரத்திலுருந்து கங்கை கரை நோக்கி செல்லும் வழியில் இந்த பாரத மாதா சிலையும் அதன் பின் மாந்தாதேஷ்வரர் கோவிலும் உள்ளன. பாரத மாதா சிலை புதிது.
மாந்தாதேஷ்வரர் கோயில்
கோவில் முன் பாரத மாதா சிலை
திரேதா யுகத்தின் சிறந்த மன்னன், மகாபுருஷன் ராமன். சீதையை தேடி இலங்கை சென்ற ராமன் தமிழகக் கடற்கரையில் சிவனை பூசித்த இடம் ராமேஷ்வரம்.
கிருத யுகத்தின் மிகச் சிறந்த மன்னன், மகாபுருஷன் மாந்தாத்தன். இவன் கதை இப்பொழுது பரவலாக புழக்கமாக இல்லை. பரமார மன்னன் போஜன் இயற்றிய வடமொழி கவிதையில் கிருத, திரேத, துவாபர யுக மகாமன்னர்கள் வரிசையில் மாந்தாத்தன், ராமன், யுதிஷ்டிரனாகும்.
உஜ்ஜயினியை தலை நகராக கொண்ட மன்னன் மாந்தாத்தன், சிவனை பூஜிக்க கேதார்நாத் செல்ல, அவனிடம் சிவப்பெருமானே, நீ காசிக்கு சென்று என்னை வழிபடு என்று ஆணையிட, மாந்தாத்தன் காசிக்கு வந்து வழிப்பட்ட தலம் இந்த மாந்தாத்தேஷ்வரன் கோவில் என்று ஒரு வரலாறு கூறுகிறது.
பௌத்த மரபிலோ மாந்தாத்தன் தன் மிகச்சிறந்த புண்ணியத்தால் தேவலோகம் சென்றான் என்றும், அங்கே இந்திரன் அவனுக்கு தன் சிம்மாசனத்தில் பாதி இடத்தை கொடுத்தான் என்றும் கூறுகிறது. இதை விவரிக்கும் சிற்பம் ஒன்று சென்னை எழும்பூர் அருங்காட்சியகத்தில் அமராவதி சிற்பங்களுள் ஒன்று.
மாந்தாத்தன் கோயில் பஞ்சாயதன வடிவத்தில் இருப்பதாகவும் சமீபத்தில் காசி காரிடார் அமைப்பில் அது புதுப்பிக்க பட்டுள்ளது என்றும் வாரணாசி ஹிந்து பல்கலைக்கழகப் பேராசிரியர் ஜோதி ரோஹில்லா அனுப்பிய வலைத்தளத்தின் தகவல்.
பொன்னியின் செல்வன் கதையில் நான்காம் அத்தியாயத்தில் கடம்பூர் மாளிகையில் ஆதித்தக்கரிகாலனின் மெய்கீர்த்தியை கட்டியங்காரன் கூறும்பொழுந்து ”மனு மாந்தாத்தா” என்று தொடங்குவான்.
