[world-vedic] Earth's Rotation, its Globular Shape and Gravity

[Guest guest]

Vinod Kumar

>From the Pages of History: Earth's Rotation, its Globular Shape and

Gravity

 

When we talk of the earth going around the sun as it has always done,

its globular shape, the different seasons, different lengths of day and

night, mind goes back to Galileo and Copernicus, scared to death,

holding the truth back lest the fury of the church falls upon them for

letting the world know the reality of nature. When one thinks of

gravity one thinks of Newton sitting under an apple tree watching an

apple fall to the ground and Newton proclaiming "Lo! there is gravity."

 

If I were to say Hindu philosophers talked and wrote about gravity and

the globular shape of the earth centuries before Newton and Galileo and

Copernicus, I would not only be dismissed as a "fanatical Hindu

communalist" by our 'all-knowing-secular intellectuals' but also incur

their wrath. And who wants that?

 

In order to state the truth and make it acceptable to our

'all-knowing-secular intellectuals' let me seek the help of a Muslim

scholar from Central Asia. Who around 1030 AD wrote a very

comprehensive book "Indica" about India -- its literature, its

philosophy, its religion, its culture, its languages, its history, its

geography, its customs, its sciences including astronomy. I am talking

about Abu-Raihan Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Alberuni -- a scholar and a devout

genuine Muslim by all standards.

 

Before I go into what Alberuni wrote let us take some time to find out

more about this man -- Alberuni.

 

In the words of Edward Sachau -- translator of Alebruni's 'Indica':

 

"Mahmud marched into the country, not without some fighting,

established there one of his generals as provincial governor, and soon

returned to Ghazna with much booty and a great part of Khiva troops,

together with the princes of the deposed family of Mamun and the

leading men of the country as prisoners of war or as hostages. Among

the last was Abu-Raihan Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Alberuni. This happened in

the spring and summer of AD 1017."

 

"When he (Alberuni) was brought to Ghazna as a hostage, he enjoyed the

reputation of a great 'munajjim' i.e. "astrologer - astronomer". By the

time he wrote 'Indica' thirteen years later after his involuntary

immigration to Afghanistan, he was a master of astrology, both

according to the Greek and the Hindu systems.

 

"Alberuni felt a strong inclination towards Indian philosophy. He seems

to have thought that the philosophers both in ancient India and Greece,

held in reality the very same ideas, the same as seem to have been his

own i.e. of pure monotheism. He seems to have to have reveled in the

pure theories of Bhagavad-Gita. … There can scarcely be any doubt that

the Muslims of later times would have found fault with him for going to

such length in his interest for these heathenish doctrines" observes

Sachau, but "still he was Muslim, whether Sunni or Shia cannot be

gathered from Indica. He sometimes takes an occasion for pointing out

to the reader the superiority of Islam over Brahamanical India… He

dares not attack Islam but attacks the Arabs."

 

What was the object of his writing 'Indica'?

"The object which the author had in view and never for a moment lost

sight of, was to afford the necessary information and training to any

one (in Islam) who wants to converse with the Hindus, and to discuss

with them questions of religion, science, or literature, on the very

basis of their own civilization."

 

Alberuni came to India with Mahmud and stayed there. He learnt Sanskrit

and Hindu literature and sciences and indeed wrote a very comprehensive

book about India of those days. As a Muslim he praises the 'wonderful

exploits of Mahmud saying: "Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the

country, and performed those wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus

became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions" but as a scholar

he laments "this is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retired

far away from those parts of the country conquered by us, and have fled

to places which our hand cannot yet reach, to Kashmir, Benares, and

other places."

 

It seems from above that his study was done in area which was under

Mahmud's control, most likely western Punjab. But still what he writes

is very illuminating. Let us now see what wrote about our subject:

astronomy in India and gravity and the solar system.

 

Quoting from Brahamgupta's Brahamsiddhanta, Alberuni wrote:

 

"Several circumstances, however, compel us to attribute globular shape

to both the earth and the heaven, viz. the fact that the stars rise and

set in different places at different times, so that, e.g. a man in

Yamakoti observes one identical start rising above the western horizon,

whilst a man in Rum at the same time observes it rising above the

eastern horizon. Another argument to the same effect is this, that a

man on Meru observes one identical star above the horizon in the zenith

of Lanka, the country of demons, whilst a man in Lanka at the same time

observes it above his head. Besides all astronomical observations are

not correct unless we assume the globular shape of heaven and earth.

Therefore we must declare that heaven is a globe, and the observation

of these characteristics of the world would not be correct unless in

reality it were a globe. Now it is evident that all other theories

about the world are futile."

 

Earlier philosophers like Aryabhata, Vasishtha and Lata had also come

to the same conclusion and Alberuni goes on to quote Varahmira:

 

"all things which are perceived by the senses, are witness in favor of

the globular shape of the earth, and refute the possibility of its

having any other shape."

 

On the subject of the rotation of the earth Alberuni writes:

 

"As regards the resting of the earth, one of the elementary problems of

astronomy, which offers many and great difficulties, this, too, is a

dogma with the Hindu astronomers. Brahamgupta says in the

Brahamsiddhanta: 'some people maintain that the first motion (from east

to west) does not lie in the meridian, but belongs to the earth. But

Varahmira refutes them by saying: If that were the case, a bird would

not return to its nest as soon as it had flown away from it towards the

west.' And, in fact it is precisely as Varahmira says." Alberuni agrees

with Varahmira that earth does not rotate.

 

Alberuni goes on to quote Brahamgupta:

 

"The followers of Aryabhata maintain that the earth is moving and the

heaven resting. People have tried to refute them by saying that, if

such were the case, stones would and trees would fall from the earth.

Brahamgupta does not agree with them, and says that that would not

necessarily follow from their theory, apparently because he thought

that all heavy things are attracted towards the center of the earth. He

says: 'On the contrary, if that were the case, the earth would not vie

in keeping an even and uniform pace with the minutes of heaven, the

pranas of the times."

 

Alberuni does not agree with Brahamgupta and is unable to understand

the rotation of the earth and goes on to write:

 

"Supposing this to be true, and that the earth makes a complete

rotation eastward in so many breaths as heaven does according to his

(Brahamgupta's) view, we cannot see what should prevent the earth from

keeping an even and uniform pace with heaven."

 

Stubbornly he refuses to accept the theory of the rotation of the earth

and goes on to say:

 

"Besides, the rotation of the earth in no way impair the value of

astronomy, as all appearances of an astronomic character can quite as

well be explained according to this theory as to the other. There are,

however, other reasons which make it impossible."

 

Alberuni says he also has written a book on this subject in which ' we

have surpassed our predecessors' but does not tell what his theories

are?

 

On the question of gravity and other issues like top and bottom, high

and low, Alberuni quotes Brahamgupta and says:

 

"Scholars have declared that the globe of the earth is in the midst of

heaven, and that Mount Meru, the home of Devas, as well as Vadavamukha

below, is the home of their opponents; the Daitya and Dhanava belong to

it. But his below is according to them is only a relative one.

Disregarding this, we say that the earth on all its sides is the same;

all people on earth stand upright, and all heavy things fall down to

the earth by a law of nature, for it is the nature of the earth to

attract and to keep things, as it is the nature of water to flow, that

of fire to burn, and that of wind to set in motion… The earth is the

only low thing, and seeds always return to it, in whatever direction

you may throw them away, and never rise upwards from the earth."

 

Varahmira explains it further:

 

"Mountains, seas, rivers, trees, cities, men, and angels, all are

around the globe of the earth. And if Yamakoti and Rum are opposite to

each other, one could not say that the one is low in relation to the

other, since low does not exist…. Every one speaks of himself, 'I am

above and the others are below,' whilst all of them are around the

globe like the blossoms springing on the branches of a Kadamba-tree.

They encircle it on all the sides, but each individual blossom has the

same position as the other, neither one hanging downward nor then other

standing upright." He emphasized: "For the earth attracts that which is

upon her, for it is the below towards all directions, and heaven is the

above towards all directions."

 

Now these were the thoughts of Hindu philosophers as recorded by

Alberuni in the early part of the eleventh century and these had not

changed for centuries. Alberuni quotes heavily from Brahamgupta whose

Brahamsiddhanta was composed in AD 628. But it was Aryabhata, born in

AD 476, the first to hold that the earth was a sphere and rotated on

its axis and that the eclipses were not the work of Rahu but caused by

the shadow of the earth falling on the moon. His Aryabhatiya was

composed in AD 499.

 

It is clear from above that it was over a millennium before Galileo,

Copernicus and Newton that the Hindu philosophers had formulated the

theories about the globular shape and rotation of the earth and

gravity.