History of Spherical Earth Idea in India

The credit for the knowledge that the earth is round is generally given to the Pythagorean School, while there is clear evidence that this fact has been known in India centuries before Pythagoras was born. I talked about this briefly in one of my previous article. In this article let us dig a little deeper and get into the details.

Is Science a Western Idea?

Round earth theory is one of the examples of how scientific achievements of non-western civilizations are often ignored. This gives an illusion that science is something specific to western civilization, while all the other cultures have made absolutely no contribution to science. This is far from truth and is a kind of thought, which gives rise to the idea of white supremacy and people claiming that anything of value has only came out of the western world. Firstly I will claim that Science is not the only thing of value for humanity and secondly science has been pursued in all the cultures at different times.

It is just that due to the industrial revolution in Europe in the past few centuries Europe had an undue advantage over other cultures and therefore they could dominate the globe. This resulted in the western nations being able to accumulate more wealth and power. Since science can only develop in the nations that have wealth and power, we get an illusion that science is the monopoly of European nations. Industrial revolution happening in Europe is a chance event and does not imply their inherent racial and cultural superiority. You can watch my previous video to understand why Industrial revolution specifically happened in England and not in India, the link it over here. As time will progress we will see other cultures catch up with west. In fact we see that happening already as emerging nations are making more and more progress in all the areas.

Spherical Earth Idea in Vedic Literature

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.

Continuation of Spherical Earth Idea through out Indian History

Now someone might argue that sure this knowledge was there in India during Vedic times, but then subsequently it was lost and during the Gupta period when the Puranas were written, it was assumed that earth is flat. Again this will be a wrong statement. Many historians have said that ancient Hindus knew earth was round all throughout history, starting from Greek Historian Megasthenes in 300BCE, followed by another account by Greek geographer Strabo (64BCE to 24AD). Around 600AD Aryabhata wrote that earth is spherical and rotates on its axis in Aryabhatiya and then in 1000AD Al Biruni wrote that “According to religious traditions of Hindu, the earth on which we live is round”. Al Biruni himself adapted the work of Aryabhata, which influenced the astronomy in the Muslim world. A lot of people in the west make claims that Muslims learned about spherical earth through the writings of Aristotle, which I would like to challenge. During the golden age of Islam, many Islamic astronomers used Ujjain as their reference point in all their calculations, just as Greenwich is used in the modern times. This clearly indicates the huge influence that Indian astronomy had on Islamic astronomy.

Aryabhata gives a great account of round earth through the example of kadambha flower, which is round in shape. He says as follows

“Half of the sphere of the earth, the planets, and the asterisms is darkened by their shadow and half being turned towards the sun is lighted according to their size. The sphere of the earth, being quite round, situated in the center of the space in the middle of the circle of asterisms surrounded by the orbit of the planets, consists of water, Earth, fire and air. Just as the ball formed by a kadamaba flower is surrounded on all sides by blossoms just so the earth is surrounded on all sides by all creatures terrestrial and aquatic.”

Moreover Aryabhatta also mentions that earth rotates on its axis and uses the analogy of a person on a ship, which is rotating. He then mentioned that although in reality it is the person who is rotating, to him though this whole word will seem to be rotating around. Now here comes the interesting part, polish astronomer Copernicus, who is given the credit for the heliocentric model uses exactly the same analogy to describe rotating earth. This shows that somehow the idea presented by Aryabhata reached Europe. It seems quite plausible. Al Biruni rubbished this idea of Aryabhata in his book, saying that if this is the case then why do we all stay glued to earth and not fly out. Of course Al Biruni did not know about gravity back then. In any case there is good evidence that the work of Muslim scholars during Islamic golden age had a lot of influence from the work of Indians and it is quite probable that many ideas presented in the Hindu texts such as the Aryabhatiya, could have travelled to Europe through the Muslim scholars in the middle ages. Therefore when Newton said that he could see further because he stands on the shoulders of the giants, these giants Included many unsung Indian scientists from the ancient times.

It is very important that we generate more awareness on these things; otherwise we Indians will always keep believing in the superiority of the others. Let us work towards helping India regain her lost glory.

Originally published at https://stoicsadhu.com on August 25, 2019.