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Indo-Iranian Cultures

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Abstract

We know the India of today as a subcontinent containing a very large population of diverse peoples but of two principal religions: Hinduism and Islam. There are, however, many other ancient religions on the subcontinent, such as Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. India is the birthplace of Mahavira and Buddha and of the two great ancient religions that they are credited with founding—Jainism and Buddhism, respectively. Indeed, Hinduism is much more complex than can be summarized by the word religion, because it involves a synthesis of many ways of living and beliefs, with roots stretching back in time to more than two millennia before the beginning of the Christian era. Table 9.1 summarizes the Indian chronology.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Among the Jains, the equivalent of Abhijit was the first in the series.

  2. 2.

    A similar change concerning Vega as a xiu (the Chinese equivalent of a naks.atra) occurred in China (Needham 1959, III, p. 251); in this case, the xiu was redefined by other stars. How this may have happened is illustrated in Figure 10.3.

  3. 3.

    One of the pairs was also part of a paired set both in China and in Ethiopia. See §15.4.1.

  4. 4.

    Bridget and Raymond Allchin (1982) suggest that the completion of the Rigveda occurred between 1500 and 1300 b.c.; Coward, Dargyay, and Neufeldt (1988/1992, p. 9), suggest between 1200 and 900 b.c. for the Rigveda and ~900 b.c. for the Atharvaveda, the most recent of the Samhitas. See §9.1.6 for an astronomical attempt to date this body of literature.

  5. 5.

    See Watts (1963, Fig. 20b) for an image of a modern folkart sculpture that bears four heads facing one direction.

  6. 6.

    The figure resembles Jain depictions of women, but is sometimes called a “cosmic man”; perhaps there had been a reversal of sex roles for the cosmos.

  7. 7.

    The last (Maitreya) of these Buddhas is to appear 5000 years after Gautama. The Pali scriptures specify seven: Vipassi, Sikhi, Vessabhu, Kakusandha, Konagamana, Kassapa, and Gautama.

  8. 8.

    The Tibetan Buddhists, often considered Mahayana, refer to their form of Buddhism as Vajrayana or “Diamond Vehicle.”

  9. 9.

    The founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak (1469–1539), left a number of hymns, elaborated and handed down by subsequent Gurus (teachers), as the Adi Granath. In the Rag Maru, God first shaped the universe, and then created “the high gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva,” as well as the goddess Maya, “the veil of illusion” (cited in Coward et al. 1988, p. 243).

  10. 10.

    A fuller discussion of the purposes, characteristics, and construction of Hindu temples than we are able to do here can be found in Mitchell (1977) and beautifully illustrated examples in Stierlen (1998).

  11. 11.

    The Brihatsamhita and the texts Shastra and Agama.

  12. 12.

    That is, devoted to the worship of Shiva or Vishnu/Krishna, respectively.

  13. 13.

    An entrance or vestibule to a temple or group of buildings.

  14. 14.

    Translated by Clark (1937, cited in Neugebauer 1957/1969, p. 183) and by Shukla and Sarma (1976). See Pingree (1970/1981: 1, 308–310).

  15. 15.

    The first 25 consonants correspond to the numbers 1–25 (e.g., k = 1, kh = 2, g = 3, gh = 4, . . .); the next 8 consonants indicate tens from 30, 40, . . . 100. The nine vowels indicate multiplication by powers of 100. Thus, a = x1; i = x100; u = x10,000; r . = 1,000,000; l . = x108; e = x1010; o = x1012; ai = x1014; au = x1016. Thus, the combination khuyughr . = 4,320,000 (the number of years in a Yuga).

  16. 16.

    Others are (a) the Brāhma (unfortunately, referred to as the Paitâmaha) Siddhānta, a short prose treatise dealing with a later phase of Indian astronomy than Varâha Mihira’s work (it is part of a longer work, the Vishn . udharmottara), (b) The Sphut . a Brahmasiddhānta written by Brahmagupta, which is based on (a), and (c) the Brāhma Siddhānta known as the S’âkalya Siddhānta.

  17. 17.

    One of the interesting developments stemming from the theory of epicycles was the invention of power series for sine and cosine by Mādhava in the 14th century, and according to Pingree, in Europe, these were first established by Newton (Pingree 1978, p. 632, f.n. 60).

  18. 18.

    Because 603 years corresponds to 216,000 years, these intervals amount to 432,000 years, 864,000 years, 1,296,000 years, and 1,728,000 years, respectively.

  19. 19.

    Note the curious inverse relation between the date of the work and the dating of the Mahābhārata. For a different view, the Tibetans held that Nyatri Tsepo, defeated in the Mahābhārata war, fled to Tibet and became the first king there about 127 b.c. (Bryant 1992, p. 78).

  20. 20.

    The closest relevant eclipse from Oppolzer is 19 Aug. 1157 b.c. at JDN 1299060. Stephenson and Houlden (1986) show a partial eclipse track through SE Asia (eastward from southeastern Burma) for 12 Feb. 1156 b.c. (JDN 1299237).

  21. 21.

    A Dravidian-speaking group of Southern India and northern Sri Lanka.

  22. 22.

    In Baylonian notation, if a number is divisible by 60, the integer part of the quotient precedes the remainder by a comma; thus, 121° is written 2,1. In the current example, 248 can be written 4,8 and the number (5 × 30°) + 29°58′13δ can be written: 2,59;58,13°. Note the use of the semicolon to denote the fraction (58 + 13/60)/60.

  23. 23.

    (Malandra 1983, p. 48).

  24. 24.

    Yt IV, v13 (Malandra 1983, p. 60).

  25. 25.

    Yt XXIV, v 95 (Malandra 1983, p. 70).

  26. 26.

    Yt XXIV, v 98 (Malandra 1983, p. 70).

  27. 27.

    The ambiguity is visible in two hymns: According to Yasht 10.142 (Malandra 1983, p. 75), “Mithra . . . , the well-created, greatest god, who in the morning (re)creates the many forms, the creatures of Spenta Mainyu, as he illuminates himself, like the Moon, with his own light”; but in Yasht 10.145, “We worship the exalted righteous who (ensure) freedom from danger, Ahura and Mithra, as well as the Stars, the Moon, and the Sun.”

  28. 28.

    The Arabic word athara means “to irrigate.”

  29. 29.

    “We worship the opulent, glorious star Tishtrya who flies as swiftly to the Wouru.kasha sea as the supernatural arrow which the archer . . . shot from Mount Airyō.xshutha to Mount Xwanwant.”

  30. 30.

    The authors note that if the edge of the water is used, the distance more closely approximates 432 hat.

  31. 31.

    Using the lunar synodic period of Table 2.5, §2.3.5, viz., 29.d530 589, a lunar “day” can be defined as 1/30 of this value or 0.d984 352 97. Therefore, 64 lunar days = 62.998 590 mean solar days.

  32. 32.

    Petri calls attention to a parallel with an early 18th-century Mongolian astronomy treatise as recorded by Baranovskaya (1955), in which the Sun and the Moon are said to move about Mt. Meru on the “mantle of a truncated cone.”

  33. 33.

    Assuming that this is equivalent to 1.5°/century, 360/1.5 = 240 centuries or 24,000 years.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, The University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada

    David H. Kelley (Professor Emeritus)

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Eugene F. Milone (Faculty Professor and Professor Emeritus)

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Kelley, D.H., Milone, E.F. (2011). Indo-Iranian Cultures. In: Exploring Ancient Skies. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7624-6_9

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