Related papers: Comets in ancient India
This paper centers on the collection of accounts on solar eclipses from the era of the Aztecs in Mesoamerica, about 1300 to 1550 AD. We present a list of all eclipse events complying with the topological visibility from the capital…
From his observations of the A.D. 1572 super-nova and the A.D. 1577 comet, Tycho Brahe concluded that such transient celestial objects are outside the Earth's atmosphere, and he quoted the 9th century A.D. Persian astrologer and astronomer…
This paper describes Indian ideas of the early-Purana/Mahabharata times (centuries BC) on the nature of space, time and consciousness that would be of interest to the physicist. In order to simplify references, we quote mainly from…
This paper, third in the series on Indian tradition of physics, describes conceptions of the cosmos with ideas that are clearly spelt out in texts such as Yoga Vasishtha.In particular, the conception of multiple universes that occurs often…
Despite the extensive amount of scholarly work done on Indian mathematics in the last 200 years, the conditions under which it originated and evolved is still not clear. Often, one reads the ancient texts with the present concepts and…
The strong 14C increase in the year AD 774/5 detected in one German and two Japanese trees was recently suggested to have been caused by an impact of a comet onto Earth and a deposition of large amounts of 14C into the atmosphere (Liu et…
While reading ancient texts one has to be cognizant of the assumptions made about the past. One has to ask: Are these assumptions valid? Are we projecting the present views into the past? A case in point is the dating of Vedanga Jyotisa.…
The cyclic model of the universe has an old history in India. It has held the preeminent position regarding the origins of the universe, and it is described in astronomical texts, Puranic encyclopaedias, and philosophical literature. Within…
The early Greek and Indian cosmologies are summarized in this paper. The two traditions appear to have developed independently although after the time of Alexander they were consciously aware of each other. The focus and style of the two…
I shall discuss the history of Indian astronomy, Aurveda (life science), chemistry and metallurgy to illustrate how downgrading experiments from scientific learning lead to the decline of ancient Indian science and civilization. We shall…
We review the history of spacecraft encounters with comets, concentrating on those that took place in the recent past, since the publication of the Comets II book. This includes the flyby missions Stardust and Deep Impact, and their…
In point of fact the Indian tradition in mathematics is long and glorious. It dates back to earliest times, and indeed many of the Indian discoveries from 5000 years ago correspond rather naturally to modern mathematical results.
We discuss the understanding of geometry of the circle in ancient India, in terms of enunciation of various principles, constructions, applications etc. during various phases of history and cultural contexts.
We review the literature for perceptions of meteors in the Maori cultures of New Zealand. We examine representations of meteors in religion, story, and ceremony. We find that meteors are sometimes personified as gods or children, or are…
Coins of Armenian king Tigranes II the Great (95-55 BC), silver and copper-bronze tetradrachms and drachms, clearly reveal a star with a tail on the royal tiara which may be associated with the Halley's comet passage of 87 BC. If so, one…
We report field studies of the astronomical beliefs of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams. The Banjaras are an ancient tribe connected with the gypsies of Europe while the Kolams have been foragers until recently. They share…
According to an ancient Indian text (c. 1700 BC?), the heavens are 1000 earth diameters away from the earth. Other texts took the sun to be halfway to the heavens, so this suggests a distance of the sun about 500 earth diameters from the…
In a recent paper Sule et al. (Astronomical Notes, vol. 332 (2011), 655) argued that an early 17th-century Indian mural of the constellation Sagittarius with a dragon-headed tail indicated that the bright supernova of 1604 was also sighted…
Textual and archaeological sources are used to provide a synoptic vision of the universe in India. This vision was based on an assumed equivalence of the outer and the inner cosmoses and it is embodied in architecture, music, and art. It…
Watchings of Canopus as a herald of the winter were important duties of ancient priests-astronomers on Easter Island. All the analysed data witness that this star was observed during the first and second voyages from Mangareva to the…