What does the ancient India think about the shape of the earth
Answers
Answer:
The ancient India thought that the shape of Earth is flat
Answer:
Explanation:
Well so much for my rant, coming back to the round earth theory. A lot of Indians are confused about the shape of the earth in India. The confusion mostly arises because of the mention of earth as flat in the Puranas. As an example in the Bhagwat Purana, there is a mention of Varaha pulling dharti out of sea and in many paintings the land is portrayed as obviously flat, how else will you portray land coming out of sea. In this video I am not concerned with the Puranas, my interest here is in the actual astronomical texts in India. If you look at those texts then there is no confusion, Indian astronomers have known the earth to be spherical for a very long time. Ancient Indian sages have known that the earth is round as far back as 900BCE when rishi Yajnavalkya wrote Shatpath Brahman, where 8.7.3.10 clearly indicate that he knew that the earth was round. This statement mentions that
“The sun strings these worlds (interpreted as the earth, its atmosphere and other planets) to himself on a thread” Shatpatha Brahmana, 8.7.3.10
Now although this text does not out rightly say that earth is spherical, the idea of sun as the center of the solar system seems to be implied in this statement. Similarly Aitereya Brahamana (written 800-500BCE by Mahidas Aitareya) also has two statements, which make it clear that ancient Indian sages knew earth is round
The Aitareya Brahmana (2.7) states:
“The [sun] never really sets or rises. In that they think of him ‘He is setting,’ having reached the end of the day, he inverts himself; thus he makes evening below, day above. Again in that they think of him ‘He is rising in the morning,’ having reached the end of the night he inverts himself; thus he makes day below, night above. He never sets; indeed he never sets.”
In section 3.44, among other things, the Aitareya Brahmana states (translation by Haug):
“The sun does never rise or set. When people think the sun is setting (it is not so). For after having arrived at the end of the day it makes itself produce two opposite effects, making night to what is below and day to what is on the other side.
When they believe it rises in the morning (this supposed rising is thus to be explained for). Having reached the end of the night, it makes itself produce two opposite effects, making night to what is below and day to what is on the other side.”
Not only are these texts saying that the earth is spherical, depending on how you interpret these texts, Shatpath Brahman seems to be proposing a heliocentric model of the solar system while from Aiteriya Brahman it is clear that the author knows that earth rotates on its axis to result in the creation of day and night.
Now keep in mind that these texts were written around this time because it is around this time that writing started. When was this knowledge gained we have no idea. The knowledge could have been there long before these texts were written.
So it is clear that Indians knew the earth was spherical long before Pythagoras was even born. Now keep in mind that it is well documented that Pythagoras travelled to different places outside to gain knowledge, which includes Egypt and Persia and it is possible that he might have also travelled to India and learned this idea from India, however this is just a conjecture and there is no proof of this, although circumstantial evidence does suggest his travel to India, for example Pythagoras was a vegetarian and probably picked up this idea from India, where this tradition was gaining strength due to the non violence taught by Buddha and Mahavira. Either way, we cannot be certain about his travels to India, so for now we can only say that Indians knew earth was spherical centuries before the Greeks.