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A Concise History of Science in India c6.s5: Interrelationship between Indian, Greek, Chinese and Arabic Astronomy

A Concise History of Science in India c6.s5

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English

Contents

Interrelationship between Indian, Greek, Chinese and Arabic Astronomy

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India, owing to her pre-eminent geographical position, was always a meeting-place of many nations and cultures. This enabled her from the very beginning to play an important role in the transmission and diffusion of ideas. Needless to say, it was a two-way traffic in the course of which her own ideas and achievements in religion, science, arts and literature travelled abroad with as much facility as those of her neighbouring and far-flung nations flowed into her own borders to cross-fertilize her very same endeavours. Her cultural and commercial contacts with West Asia and Egypt extended to prehistoric times. In historic times, the Achaemenian Empire and the Graeco-Bactrian kingdoms provided an effective bridge between India at one end and West Asia and the Mediterranean world at the other. Ptolemaic Egypt and Rome's Eastern Empire developed a thriving commercial and trade relations with India. After the spread of Buddhism into China, India, naturally enough, became the place of pilgrimage of Chinese Buddhists, and in this way was opened up a Sino-Indian intercourse in scientific and cultural exchanges which lasted for several centuries. The opening up of ‘silk-roads’ and the consequent flow of trade and commerce through Central Asia also contributed to the process of such exchanges. The rise of Islam witnessed a new interest in India and in her savants. In spanning the world from Spain to South-East Asia and establishing her political and commercial supremacy over half of the old world, Islam acted as the natural carriers of ancient knowledge as cultivated among various peoples and, in the process, helped in the preservation and further development of that knowledge affecting India in no small way.

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The Samrāṭ Yantra, Yantar Mantar, Delhi. (*Courtesy, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi.*) *See p. 129*

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A Thirteenth Century Astrolabe, Archaeological Museum, Red Fort, Delhi. (*Courtesy, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi.*) *See pp. 126 ff.*

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The Miśra Yantra, Yantar Mantar, Delhi. (Courtesy, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi.) *See* p. 130

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The Rām Yantra and the Jai Prakāś (right-hand corner below), Yantar Mantar, Delhi. (Courtesy, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi.) *See* p. 130

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Against the above historical background it is futile to hold extreme views such as that Indian astronomy was wholly of indigenous development or that it was derived wholly from a foreign source. This is true not only of India but of all cultures to a greater or less degree, for, in the development of knowledge, each culture, marked as it was by its own genius and individuality, depended heavily on the efforts of others.

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Much of the Vedic astronomy, as we have seen, was of a primitive nature capable of independent development wherever an agrarian civilization took root. Its only important sophistication was the development of a stellar zodiac, the *nakṣatra* system, to follow the motions of the moon and the sun. Such a system also characterized the early primitive astronomy of contemporaneous civilizations in China and West Asia. This occasioned a controversy as to whether the Indian *nakṣatra*, the Chinese *hsiu*, the Babylonian lunar mansions or the Arab *manāzil* originated independently, if not, whether any of them having the pride of priority influenced the development of all the rest, or whether each of them had a common origin. This question of origin has, however, still remained an unsolved problem. In the meantime, the *nakṣatras* fortified by the high antiquity of the *Ṛgveda* and the *Yajurveda* texts in which these were first mentioned, by the fixity of their number (27 or 28), and by their consistent use as a stellar frame-work in calendrical astronomy, maintained their characteristic position in Indian pre-scientific astronomy.

Influence of Babylonian and Greek Astronomy

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The position is different when we come to Indian astronomy of the *Siddhāntic* period. Although records bearing on this transitional phase of Indian astronomy are very scanty, what we know clearly seems to indicate unmistakable foreign influence. Such a conclusion of foreign, e.g. Greek and Babylonian, influence is based on eulogistic references to Greek astronomy and astronomers, transliteration into Sanskrit of Greek technical terms and principles and methods typical of Greek astronomy, the historical development of which is untraceable in earlier Sanskrit literature.

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Garga and Varāhamihira have referred to the proficiencies of the Greeks (*yavanas*) in astronomy and even stated that although they were *mlecchas* they should be honoured as *ṛṣis*. As to the use of Greek technical words, Varāhamihira in his *Bṛhajjātaka* gives the names of the zodiacal signs as follows: *Kriya* (*Meṣa*), *Tāvuri* (*Vṛṣa*), *Jituma* (*Mithuna*), *Leya* (*Siṃha*), *Kulīra* (*Karkaṭa*), *Pāthona* (*Kanyā*), *Jūka* (*Tulā*), *Kaurpya* (*Vṛścika*), *Taukṣika* (*Dhanu*), *Ākokera* (*Makara*), *Hṛdroga* (*Kumbha*) and *Ittha* (*Mīna*). Other examples are *liptā*, minutes; *horā*, hour, horoscope; *dreṣkāṇa* or *dṛkkāna*, decan; *āpoklima*, inclination; *kendra*, anomaly; *jyāmitra*, chord (lit. lover of chord), etc. These and other technical terms were used in the same sense by Paulus Alexandrinus (*c.* A.D. 378), the author of *Eisagoge*, an astrological work.

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As to astronomical parameters, principles and methods of foreign origin which found their place in the Indian system, Varāha’s *Pañcasiddhāntikā* throws some light. Pradyumna and Vijayanandin who flourished before Āryabhaṭa I made a special study of the superior and inferior planets and probably had access to Babylonian sources. P. C. Sengupta suggested that Babylonian elements thus transmitted to India were developed into a fuller planetary theory by Āryabhaṭa I who did very much the same thing for Indian astronomy as Ptolemy had done for the Greek. Further evidence of Babylonian influence is provided by the computation of lunar motions as given in the *Vasiṣṭha-siddhānta*. This text yields the value of the anomalistic month as 27; 33, 16, 22 … in sexagesimal unit, which is in remarkable agreement with the Babylonian value of 27; 33, 16, 26, 54. It is very likely that the convergents of the anomalistic month, e.g. 248/9 and 3031/110, discovered in a tablet from Uruk and discussed by Schnabel, were known to the author of the *Vasiṣṭha-siddhānta*. Recently David Pingree drew attention to an astrological text, the *Yavanajātaka* of Sphujidhvaja (A.D. 269), which contained the use of Babylonian linear methods in planetary calculations.

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The *Romaka-* and the *Pauliśa-siddhānta*, of which the very titles indicate foreign origin, were long taken to represent Greek or Alexandrian-Greek astronomy. Although already indianized, the *Romaka* was still using the Metonic cycle and the period followed by the *Pauliśa* was different from the *yuga* of later Hindu astronomers. In one of them the *ahargaṇa* is calculated for the meridian of Yavanapura, and in the other the difference in the longitudes of Yavanapura and Ujjayinī is expressly given. With regard to other elements of astronomy discussed in these works, similarities with those of the Greek astronomy were noticed, which led Thibaut to observe: ‘… it certainly appears highly probable that the *Pauliśa-* and *Romaka-siddhāntas* were the earliest Sanskrit works in which the new knowledge imported from the West was embodied.’ Be that as it may, even the earliest account of these works as preserved by Varāha clearly shows significant modifications. In mathematical computations the Greek chords were replaced by the half-chords, i.e. sine functions, and convenient tables were constructed accordingly. In the planetary theories, although the geometrical models were adopted, the longitudes of apogee, the sizes of the epicycles and other related parameters were different, agreeing in many cases more closely with observations.

Indian Astronomy in China

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Sino-Indian religious and cultural intercourse which might have started about the beginning of the Christian era became really intensified from the time of Yüeh-Chih Dharmarakṣa (third-fourth century A.D.) and the Kashmirian Kumārajīva (fourth-fifth century A.D.) who visited China by the overland Central Asian route. During the following centuries a steady stream of Buddhist scholars from Kashmir, Western, Central and Eastern India visited China to carry out their missionary activity. Their main activity was no doubt confined to preaching the Buddhist doctrines and translating canonical texts, but some of them doubtless were engaged in spreading secular learning such as astronomy, mathematics and medicine. In the catalogue of the Sui dynasty (A.D. 610) are mentioned a number of Brahminical works on astronomy, of which some are enumerated below:

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(1) *Po-lo-mên t'ien-wen-ching*—Brahminical astronomy, in 21 books;
(2) *Po-lo-mên chieh-chieh hsien-jên-wen-shuo*—Astronomical dissertations of the Brāhmaṇa Chieh-chieh, in 30 books;
(3) *Po-lo-mên t'ien-wen*—Brahminical astronomy, in 1 book;
(4) *Po-lo-mên yin yang Suan ching*—Brahminical method of calculating time, in 1 book.

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Nothing is known about the contents of these works, but the very titles and their careful listing in a dynastic catalogue clearly indicate an interest in Indian astronomy among the Chinese scholars in the beginning of the seventh and possibly in the sixth century A.D. In the seventh century again we hear of an Astronomical Board at Chang-Nan where Indian *siddhāntas* bearing the names of *Gautama*, *Kāśyapa* and *Kumāra* used to be taught. The Thang dynasty records mention astronomers bearing the name ‘Ch'u-t'an’ which is the Chinese transcription of the Indian name ‘Gautama’. Ch'u-t'an Hsi-ta (meaning Gautama Siddha or Siddhārtha), an astronomer in the Thang Court (eighth century A.D.), translated an Indian calendar under the Chinese title *Chiu-Chi-li*. The *navagraha* or the astronomy of 9 planets, the *Rāhu-Ketu* theory of eclipse and other peculiarities of Hindu astronomy began to appear in the Chinese astronomical literature from about this time. Its influence can be somewhat guessed from the fact that I-hsing, a noted Tantric-Buddhist astronomer of the Thang period, was asked by the emperor to study the principles of Indian astronomy and mathematics introduced to China by Hsi-ta and other scholars.

Indian Astronomy among the Arabs and in Latin Europe

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Astronomy among the Arabs at the time of their embracing Islam was rather in a primitive state. They had some practical knowledge of stars, the motions of the sun and the moon, which they utilized for purposes of reckoning time. Their interest in scientific astronomy was aroused by the knowledge that the Hindus of India and the Persians of the Sassanian period had cultivated among themselves a better and more scientific system of astronomy indispensable for the making of accurate and reliable calendars. Ibn al-Adamī, in the preface of his astronomical tables *Naẓm al-ʻiqd*, records the visit during the reign of Caliph al-Mansūr of an Indian astronomer who brought with him to the Caliph's court planetary tables, texts for the calculation of eclipses, ascension of signs and other matters of astronomical import. The astrologer Abu-Māshar of Balkh mentions an Indian astronomer from whom he derived the knowledge of the Hindu great cycle of ‘Kalpa’. These visits and references doubtless proved useful, for very soon, under orders of al-Mansūr, Brahmagupta's *Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta* and *Khaṇḍakhādyaka* were translated into Arabic with the assistance of Hindu pandits, by Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī (*d.* 796 or 806) and Yaʻqūb ibn Ṭāriq (*d.* 796). In the Arabic translations these works were known as *Sindhind* and *Arkand*.

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About the same time al-Tamīmī translated the Pahlavi astronomical tables, the *Zik-i Shatro-ayār*, into Arabic under the title *Zīj ashshahriyār*. This Persian work was compiled in the closing period of the Sassanian Empire and exerted considerable influence on the growth of the early phase of Arabic astronomical literature. We have it from al-Bīrūnī that the *Shatro-ayār* itself was based on Hindu astronomical methods of computation and parameters. In fact, Hindu astronomical texts were eagerly sought for, studied and translated into Arabic with a view to getting a better understanding of the Persian tables.

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Kennedy, in his excellent survey of Islamic astronomical tables, has given an impressive list of such tables which were either translations of *siddhāntas* or based on methods and parameters contained in them. Some of these works include the Astronomical Tables of al-Khwārizmī (*c.* 840) revised later by Maslama al-Majrīṭī (*c.* 1000) of Spain, *Az-Zīj al-Mukhtari* of al-Ḥasan bin Miṣbāḥ (*c.* 870), *Az-Zīj al-Kabir* of an-Nairizi (*c.* 900), *Mukhtaṣar az-Zīj* of ibn aṣ-Ṣaffār (*c.* 1100). Some of the Arab astronomers like ibn Yunis and al-Battānī who followed Ptolemy in the compilation of their *Zījes* had access to the *Sindhind* and occasionally used Hindu parameters. In this transmission al-Bīrūnī (973–1048) played a distinctive role. Instead of directly translating the texts as al-Fazārī, ibn Ṭāriq and others did, he discussed Indian astronomy and astronomical methods critically in his *Taʻrīkh al-Hind*, *al-Qānūn al-Maʻsūdī*, comparing and contrasting them with those of other systems. Interest in Hindu astronomy declined among the Eastern Arabs after they were acquainted with the works of Ptolemy, Theon of Alexandria and other Greek authors in their Arabic translations, but peculiarly enough Hindu astronomy and astronomical parameters continued to remain popular among the astronomers of Spain.

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Some of the special features of Hindu astronomy which were in this way incorporated in Islamic *Zījes* are the zero meridian of Ujjayinī which assumed the name ‘Arin’, the era of *Kaliyuga* (February 17–18, 3102 B.C.)

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which became the ‘Era of Flood’, the Hindu planetary theory, the tables of sine (R = 150), the tables of solar declinations, methods of spherical trigonometry, ascensional difference, calculation of parallax and its application to solar eclipse, etc.

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The elements of Hindu astronomy passed into Latin Europe through Latin translations of some of the Islamic *Zījes* mentioned above. The most conspicuous of them is Adelard of Bath’s (*c.* 1142) translation of al-Khwārizmī’s astronomical tables in the version of the Spanish astronomer Maslama al-Majrīṭī. Another incomplete Latin translation of al-Khwārizmī’s tables has been found in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, which has recently been edited, translated and commented upon by Neugebauer. In 1951, Lynn Thorndike published and translated an anonymous fifteenth-century Latin manuscript Ashmole 191 II, in which computations were made for the geographical latitude of Newminster, England, for the year 1428. The study of astronomical parameters and tables given in the unsuspecting manuscript has revealed the characteristic features of Hindu astronomy and another interesting instance of transmission as late as the fifteenth century possibly through Arabic (Spanish) intermediaries. The Newminster manuscript begins the Era of Flood from the year 3102 B.C. which is the beginning of the *Kaliyuga* era and uses the sine functions instead of the Greek chord, tabulating them for R = 150, a norm used in the *Khaṇḍakhādyaka* and in the Toledan Tables.

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In this way Hindu astronomy itself modified by the elements of Babylonian and Greek astronomy travelled, through the powerful vehicle of Arabic language, as far west as England. The circuit was completed when, with the establishment of the Ghaznavid and the Mughal rule in India, the Greek or rather the more advanced Ptolemaic astronomy in Arabic version reached India and began to be studied and taught at first exclusively among the Muslim circles and gradually among select Hindu astronomers who appreciated its merit, its more refined mathematical techniques and observational standards.

Cites (10)