Scriptures, science and mythology: An ancient Indian astronomical interplay

Rajesh KochharPresident IAU Commission 41: History of Astronomy

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Sector 81, Mohali,

rkochhar2000@yahoo.com

Belfast 16 November 2011

Human beings are born astronomers.

Ever since they learnt to walk

upright, they have looked at the sky

and wondered. The sky has remained

the same but its meaning has been

changing.

We can distinguish between three

phases in humankind’s astronomical

pursuits: Propitiatory Phase,

Negotiatory Phase, and the Galilean

Phase. In the current Galilean phase,

celestial bodies are mere objects of

study and the sky is a laboratory for

testing our scientific theories.

Although we are a part of the

Universe, we now tend to look at it

as if from the outside.

In an earlier era however astronomy

was sacred. Human perception of the

cosmic environment was an essential

input for determining the

humankind’s place in the divine

scheme of things.

The Propitiatory and Negotiatory

phases were coeval rather than

sequential. The Sun and the Moon

are part of human evolution. Other

planets would also have been noticed

very early.

Since the world was anthropo-

centric, the Creator would surely

keep a watch on the Earthians. His

messages would be carried by the

moving deities in the sky.

It was therefore important to monitor

these objects. The tapestry of the

night sky represented the mysterious

immutable part of the cosmos, and

served as a convenient backdrop for

movements in the sky.

Ancient Indian perception of the

dynamic cosmic environment was

bipolar. Orbits of the seven

geocentric planets (graha) by virtue

of their predictability represented

cosmic order,

while phenomena like meteors,

comets and eclipses which did not fit

into any pattern were classified as

utpata, portent or calamity.

The beginnings of astronomy are

related to the requirements of the

ritual in early cultures. Ritual was a

means of securing divine approval

and support for terrestrial actions. To

be effective,

the ritual had to be elaborate and

well-timed, so that a careful

distinction could be made between

auspicious and inauspicious times.

Since planetary motions provided a

natural means of time keeping ,

their refined study became

important. Early astronomical

knowledge went into the making of

sacred literature and mythology.

Even when astronomy developed as

a scientific

discipline in its own right, it

continued to be seen as revealed

knowledge rather than deduced. It

could not, would not, jettison its

historical baggage.

Before proceeding further, it will be

instructive to take note of the nature

and limitations of the source material

available.

Source material

Oral intellectual tradition. Secondary

role for script when used. Perishable

writing material.

Vedic corpus: no addition, no deletion.

Mechanisms to prevent distortion.

Puranas and epics : addition but no

deletion.

Scientific texts ( astronomy and health

care) have undergone deletions,

additions and alterations.

.

In my book The Vedic People

(2000), I have assigned the bracket

1700-900 BCE to the actual

composition of the Rgveda. Its

oldest portions may however carry

memories of still older times.

Mahabharata, “the Encyclopedia

Brahminica” is believed to have

largely acquired “its present

volume, content and character”

by the fourth century CE.

Although there are minor

additions/ alterations in various

recensions/ editions of Mbh after

date,

astronomical content of MBh

was NOT touched. MBh is thus a

valuable source for the

astronomical knowledge as it

stood c. 4th cent. CE.

An important feature of ancient

Indic textual tradition should be

noted. These texts are valuable for

the statements they explicitly make.

But no conclusions should be

drawn from absence of mention..

If the dog barked, we know the dog

was not there. But if the dog did not

bark, we do not know whether only

the bark was missing or the dog

itself was absent.

In addition to the Hindu sacred texts,

we have Buddhist and Jain sources:

written, dated, and very valuable.

Historiography and geography

The colonial period British historians

denied great antiquity or originality to

Indian science. The backlash has

produced a school of thought which

tries to push chronology backwards and

deny all outside influences.

This is like discovering great

therapeutic value in distilled water.

History is a child of geography. The

Himalayas protect India, but do not

isolate it. India’s entire intellectual

tradition has been fashioned by a

combination of antiquity, continuity

and interaction with

the outside world, especially through

the northwest. Before the colonial

period, these interactions were

unselfconscious and mutual. People

and ideas both travelled and were

absorbed.

Foreign words are accepted in a

language. Once absorbed they obey

rules of the host language. Similarly,

self-confident cultures are open to

influences from all over. Ideas once

received are assimilated

and developed further in the context

of the host culture.

This give-and-take is visible in

sacred and mathematical astronomy

in India, as also elsewhere.

There are a few stray astronomical

references in the Rgveda, but for our

purposes the more useful is the

Yajurveda. This is understandable

because Yajurveda is a manual for

actual performance of the ritual.

There is a solitary Vedic text,

Vedanga Jyotisha, devoted

exclusively to astronomy. Its oldest

portions could be as old as 1400

BCE. As a scientific text, it soon

became obsolete. Still, it was

.

preserved because it had Vedic

sanctity. No wonder then that it has

been the least understood of the

whole corpus.

Zodiacal signs and week days are

not mentioned in Vedic astronomy.

They were introduced into Indian

mainstream by the end of 5th cent.

from the northwest

Siddhantic astronomy

An important date in Indian astronomy is

499 CE when Aryabhata ( b. 476 CE)

composed his influential text simply

called Aryabhatiyam.

Aryabhata incorporated Greco-

Babylonian elements into his work,

integrated zodiacal signs and weekdays

into Indian astronomical tradition, and in

addition gave, for the first time in the

Indian context, the mathematical theory

of eclipses.

For a thousand years, from sixth century

CE till Kepler’s time, Indian astronomers

were probably the only ones in the world

who could calculate eclipses with any

reasonable accuracy. The tradition was

alive till early nineteenth century.

Since the astro-mathematical texts

were called Siddhantas (“proven in

the end”), we may call Indian

mathematical astronomy Siddhantic

astronomy (a term preferable to, say,

Hindu astronomy).

While astronomical text books were

known by the name of their authors,

their elements were used to upgrade old

texts which were claimed to be divine

in origin.

In imitation of the Rgveda, astronomical

texts were composed in metrical verse,

so that an astronomer had to be a poet

first. (Unlike the Vedic corpus, no steps

were taken to preserve the text in its

original form.)

Cosmic order and human ethics

There is a beautiful concept linking

the divine with the human that goes

back to the joint Indo-Iranian times.

Called rta in the Rgveda and arta

(or asa) in the Avesta, it refers to the

cosmic order, not in the sense of

impersonal laws of nature as

ascertained from the outside, but as an

example of righteous cosmic conduct

which the humans should emulate.

The laws regulating the behaviour of

the planetary divinities are inbuilt

into the system. But similar

regulation of human conduct can

come only from an explicit

prescription

of a code of ethical conduct.

Emphasis on rta / arta is far more

pronounced in the Avesta than

Rgveda (Varuna vs Indra). This

much is well known.

What follows is my own speculation.

To bring the terrestrial and the

celestial closer together, the Vedic

people assigned the attributes of one

to the other. Planets return to their

place in the sky; so do seasons on

the earth. But human beings are born

and die. In analogy with the planets,

human beings should also have

continuity. To achieve this, the

concept of reincarnation was

introduced. But in a certain sense

planets are condemned to a life of

incessant motion. An endless cycle of

birth and death would be a punishment

rather than a boon. Therefore the

concept of what we may call truncated

eternity was introduced,

under the name moksha or nirvana,

whereby a soul is liberated from the

constraints of future birth.

At the moment, we are far more

interested in the reverse process,

namely, the human attributes

assigned to the gods.

The cyclic time

The concept of age, birth and death

was introduced for the cosmos as a

whole, and a cosmic chronology in the

form of the yuga system

was constructed by suitably scaling up

the human calendar. The eternity of

the planetary orbits was generalized to

set up an oscillating universe without

beginning or end. 

Manusmrti (as also Mahabharata and

other texts) constructs an elaborate

chronological scheme where large

numbers are defined. I have discussed it

at length in a paper, which is available

on the Net. Here is a very brief summary.

For those in a hurry, the recipe is this:

Multiply 360 by 12 and add zeroes.

Manusmrti (as also Mahabharata and

other texts) constructs an elaborate

chronological scheme where large

numbers are defined. I have discussed it

at length in a paper, which is available

on the Net. Here is a very brief summary.

In the Vedic times, a year comprised 12

months and 360 days. A human year was

set equal to a day of the gods, so that a

divine year (Dyr) would consist of 360

human years (yr).The divine year in turn

was used to construct an elaborate

chronology.

A mahayuga or chaturyuga (great age or

four-age) was postulated as made up of

four sub-ages or yugas: kali, dvapara,

treta and krta, with duration (and virtue)

in the ratio 1:2:3:4. Kaliyuga was set

equal to 1200 Dyr so that a mahayuga

comprised 12000 Dyr. In human years,

1 Kaliyuga=432,000 years

1 Mahayuga=4.32 million years.

A still bigger time-span, Brahma’s day (or night), or a kalpa,

is defined as equal to 1000 mahayugas: 

1  Brahma’s day=4.32 billion years.

Let us now complicate the matters. It

is convenient to use modern

mathematical notation to properly

follow the details. Let us denote the

duration of a mahayuga by m ; and

kaliyuga by k.

Dvapara, treta and krta are then

2k,3k and 4k respectively, so that

m=k+2k+3k+4k=10k.For later reference, let us denote a krtayuga (=4k) by s.

Then 

6m=60k=15s.

Let us now make matters more complicated:

1 kalpa=1000m = 994m + 6m                 =14 x 71m +15s               =14 x 71m +14 s+ s

= s+14(71m + s).

Let us call 71m a Manvantara

(Manu’s interval) so called because

this span is presided over by a ruler

designated Manu. (There are thus 14

Manus.) We can now describe a

kalpa in words.

1 kalpa=s+14(71m + s)

A kalpa begins with a dawn equal to

a krtayuga. This dawn is followed in

succession by 14 Manvantaras, at the

end of each of which there occurs a

deluge (pralaya) lasting a krtayuga.

This complex scheme has perplexed

many modern-day commentators.

Thus, Rev. Ebenezer Burgess in his

famous 1860 annotated translation of

the Surya Siddhanta wondered:

“Why the factors fourteen and seventy

- one were thus used in making up the

Aeon [kalpa] is not obvious” (Burgess

1860:11). I think this scheme was

constructed working backwards from

the neat round figure of 1000.

It is noteworthy that though the

scheme is cosmological, it brings in

political rulers ( Manu), thus

combining the celestial with the

human.

The yuga nomenclature was

borrowed by the Puranas in the

context of political history. A total

of about 94 past royal generations

were split into the three yugas: krta

(or satya), treta, and dvapara.

The Puranic kaliyuga began with the

Mahabharata war.(the date of the

text is independent of the date of the

event.)

Note that the yuga scheme is

inherently optimistic. Kaliyuga is

the worst period but mercifully it is

the shortest. And satyayuga is round

the corner.

This “fact” was invoked to arouse

feelings against the British rule.

There was however one significant

difference. Earlier, time had flowed

at its own pace.

Now people were exhorted to hasten

it the end of kaliyuga under the

British and usher in the satyayuga.

(Has not worked out quite that way, but that is

a separate mater.)

For the sake of continuity with the

scriptures, the yuga scheme

was borrowed by the astronomers.

Instead of conveniently expressing

planetary revolutions in a million or

a billion years,

an astronomer would say that there

are 146,568 revolutions of Saturn in

a mahayuga, implying an orbital

period of 29.4743 years.

The mix-up between cosmological

yuga and the Puranic yuga has

produced great confusion.

Timescales of hundred thousands of

years have been assigned to kings

and events.

Unwittingly or otherwise, Aryabhata

has added to the confusion in a very

influential way. He uses the yuga

system all right, and for his own

reasons fixes the beginning of his

kaliyuga at 3102 BC.

While referring to the beginning of

his kaliyuga, he explicitly but

unnecessarily refers to the

Mahabharata battle. The result is that

the hypothetical astronomical epoch

of

3102 BCE has been erroneously

taken to be the date of the historical

Mahabharata battle.

The most interesting interplay of

scriptures, scientific knowledge and

mythology is provided by the

treatment of eclipses.

Vedic Rahu and Ketu

Rgveda (5.40.5-9) tells us that

Svarbhanu, son of an asura, pierced

the sun “through and through with

darkness”.

The Sun himself appealed to Atri

(the poet who wrote this): “Let not

the oppressor with this dread,

through anger, swallow me up, for I

am thine, O Atri”. Responding

quickly,

Atri caused Svarbhanu’s magic arts

to vanish. (Griffith 1896, p. 255) .

What the Atri probably did was to

chant mantras while the eclipse

lasted.

The Rgvedic description is

significant. An eclipse was seen as

the demon’s work in disrupting the

cosmic order. Propitiation was

needed to restore that order.

Subsequently, the name of the demon

was changed to Rahu, who appears

for the first time in Atharvaveda (19,

9-10).

The Rahu legend was adopted by the

Buddhists to add to Buddha’s glory.

The Pali Buddhist sources refer

to the Moon and the Sun freeing

themselves from the clutches of

Rahu by invoking Buddha’s name. (Chandima Sutta, Samyutta-nikaya 2.9; Suriya Sutta,

Samyutta-nikaya 2.10).

Atharvaveda (13.16-24) employs ketu

to mean ray of light. Typically ketu

meant combination of fire and smoke. At

one place ketu means either a comet or

smoke from a funeral pyre. But

generally, ketu denoted comets and

meteors.

Puranic Rahu and Ketu

Interestingly, critical questions were

asked within the mythological

framework also. If the demon Rahu

devours the Sun or the Moon to

cause an eclipse,

how do they become visible again?

The answer is provided by the well -

known story of samudramanthana

(churning of ocean), described in

Mahabharata, Vishnupurana and

elsewhere. In this elaborate story,

the demon Rahu’s head is chopped

off, which survives. It is the Rahu

head which causes an eclipse. Since

the rest of the body is missing, there

is an escape route for the Sun and

the Moon.

Note that the name Rahu now

belonged to the body-less head. The

head-less body was placed in the

mortuary for later use.

Mathematical theory of eclipses

According to this theory, solar and

lunar eclipses occur when the Moon

is at either of its orbital nodes. These

theoretical points move in a direction

opposite to that of the

planets and complete an orbit in the

rather short period of 18.6 years. At

this stage, astronomers could have

declared: We understand how

eclipses take place. We can even

predict them.

We do not need eclipse demon any

more. But, no body was ready for a

break with the past.

The two nodes were classified as

planets, implying that they were now

amenable to mathematics. Since they

were hypothetical, they were dubbed

shadow planets.

And since they were planets, they

had to be named . It was decided to

call them Rahu and Ketu .

Since the two nodes are 180 degrees

apart, naming one would have been

sufficient. Both were listed no doubt

to bring the planetary number up to

nine which was considered sacred

and magical.

If brand new names had been used,

matter would have rested there. Both

Rahu and Ketu are terms of Vedic

vintage. The term Rahu had

previously been used

in connection with eclipse so that its

deployment represents an attempt at

integrating new scientific

developments with ancient tradition.

Rahu now ceased to be an utpata; its

predictability however did not

remove the fear associated with it.

Thanks to mathematical astronomy,

Rahu was now a demon who came

by appointment.

Another demon was needed for the

other node.

Mythology was accordingly

expanded to take note of the new

scientific developments.

The torso which had been lying

lifeless after the detachment of the

Rahu head was now resurrected and

for some reason named Ketu.

At the same time, Ketu continued to

be used in the older sense (comets,

etc.) also, creating great confusion.

Brhatsammhita (5:1-3) also refers to

a prevalent alternative belief that

Rahu is of a serpentine form with

only the head and the tail. This was

an Iranian myth. We do not know

whether it had received arrived into

India or whether the author

Varahamihira was placing on record

a myth which was already known.

So, here we have an example of

commonality or migration of myths.

I have argued that inclusion of the

demon Rahu in the list of

mathematically tractable planets

took place after 499 CE. Support for

this conclusion comes from

iconographic data.

Puranic Rahu occurs in a relief of the

‘Churning of the Ocean’ carved over

the façade of the doorway of cave-

temple number nineteen at Udayagiri

in the Vidisha district of

Madhya Pradesh, which can be dated

to ca. 430-450 CE. Earliest known

representations of Rahu as a member

of the planetary deities are those on

two stone lintels, 100cm by 20cm,

originally

from the villages of Nachna and

Kuthara in the Panna district in the

Bundelkhand region of Madhya

Pradesh.

They were most likely sculpted

during the reign of the Uchchakalpa

king Jayanatha (r. ca. 490-510 CE)( Markel 1990, pp. 11-13).

If the assigned dates are correct, it is

remarkable that Rahu’s planetization

occurred within a decade of

Aryabhata’s theory.

Ketu as a planetary deity had to wait.

He appears in about 600 CE or a

little later, in Uttar Pradesh.

In the eastern state of Orissa, Ketu

was not counted in until the tenth

century, which thus had only eight

grahas till then (Markel 1990, p. 21).

One wonders whether it was from

Orissa that Rahu as Yahu travelled

to Burma as one of the eight nats

(spirits).

Astronomical literature employs the

term Rahu in connection with

eclipse, in a number of ways.

Aryabhata does not use either Rahu

or Ketu; he and following him many

others refer to a node as pata.

Otherwise brilliant Brahmagupta (b.

598CE) took time to reconcile

tradition with science. Fortunately he

lived long enough to be able to do

so.

In his earlier work

Brahmasphutasiddhanta ( 628 CE),

he expresses his faith in the demon

Rahu as the cause of eclipse. Al

Biruni noted this (Sachau 1888, Vol. 2, p. 110).

In his later text, Khandakhadyaka

(665 CE), however, Brahmagupta

calculates eclipses in a

matter-of-fact way. He now

uses the technical term pata and does

not name Rahu or Ketu (Chatterjee 1970, pp.

80-85). The later, secondary, texts

however do use the term Rahu.

The 689 CE astronomical handbook

Karanaratna by Devacharya (Shukla

1979) uses Rahu to denote the

eclipse shadow (2.2) as well as the

ascending node (e.g. 1.15).

Significantly, at one place (1.13)

the ascending node is called

Rahumukha (Rahu head). A tersely

written basic astronomical text will

have no reason to mention Ketu. As

comet, meteor or the like, Ketu lay

outside the scope of theory while

as descending node it would be

redundant once the ascending node

Rahu or pata was mentioned.

In later Iranian and Arabic

mythology Rahu and Ketu become

the head and the tail of the dragon

Al-Djawzahr. Ketu as comet is

remembered as al-Kayd (Hartner 1965).

Rahu and Ketu as part of

mathematical astronomy were

introduced into China during the

Tang dynasty (618-907 CE), but

with modified meaning.

While Rahu was retained in the

sense of the lunar ascending node,

Ketu was used as a designation for

lunar apogee (Niu 1995) .

The imagery and iconography of

Rahu and Ketu have evolved over

time, with the Ketu having been

more difficult to conceptualize.

While Rahu has been well-defined

since the days of the

samudramanthana story, Ketu had in

the sixth century CE the eclipse role

thrust upon him in addition to the

cometary ( and not the other way

round as Neugebauer (1957, p. 211)

suggests).

Spin of the earth

Aryabhata believed in the spin of the

earth and said so in his work. This

however never became a part of the

mainstream.

He was severally criticized for this

by his “adversaries”.

Even later astronomers belonging to

his own school felt so embarrassed

that they tried to change a word here

and there in his work to convey the

impression that the great master

like everybody else took the earth to

be non-spinning. And yet the 

Skanda Purana  (1.1.31.71)

describes the earth as revolving like

a bhramarika (spinning top).

Here we have an example of a

“religious” text subscribing to a

scientific view even though the

scientists did not.

Quite obviously, there was a time

when mythology was open in the

sense it would take note of the

developments in science and in fact

could even take sides.

It is a most remarkable fact that no

religious book or revealed text has

ever contradicted the scientific

knowledge that prevailed at the time

of its composition.

At some stage, religious tradition

gets frozen, while science marches

on.

When and how did scriptures and

mythology on one hand and science

on the other became antagonistic?

I would like to close on a

contemporary note.

In India and among Non Resident

Indians there is a flourishing

industry which discovers all modern

“Western” scientific developments

in ancient texts.

On the face of it, it looks laughable,

but it serves an important purpose. It

enables the majority community in

India to accept modern scientific

developments without feeling

culturally threatened.

Contrast it with the situation with

some extremist Muslim groups

which treat modern science as part of

Western civilization package.

As part of the globalization-era

boom, the number of malls and

multiplexes has drastically increased

in India in recent times. This has

been noticed.

An even more striking phenomenon

however has gone un-noticed. The

number of temples dedicated to the

malignant planet Saturn (Shani) have

multiplied even more.

This is because of the insecurities in

the new economy. The malignant

planet Saturn (Shani) is now

represented by your private sector

manager.

You did not need to appease Saturn

if you had a government job.

Rise of individualism now demands

pseudo-mythology. In the era of

classical mythology, eclipse was

supposed to exercise a class effect.

(Bad for pregnant women; bad for

people of such and such region, etc.).

But this is an era of individual

ambitions, rivalries and jealousies.

People are now demanding of the

astrologers that an eclipse have a

differential effect , related, e. g., to

an individual’s zodiacal sign.

Emergence of pseudo-mythology is

an entirely new phenomenon, worthy

of detailed study. I anticipate new

developments in pseudo-mythology

to cope with current financial

developments.

Thank you.

Concluding remarks

I now return to the main thesis of the

paper,

Mathematical astronomy could

never sever its links with sacred

astronomy. (yuga theory, Rahu as

lunar node).

Mythology returned the

compliment by taking into account

scientific developments ( two

eclipse demons in place of one.)

THANK YOU

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