The Surya Siddhanta is an ancient Indian scripture and scientific work in one. It’s name means in Sanskrit “the wisdom (siddha) of the sun (surya)”. The work itself is about 2500 years old and is a powerful testament to the depth and advancement of science in ancient India. The scripture itself has amazed eastern and western scientists, especially astronomers for decades. Why? Behold the list of chapters…
The table of contents in this article are:
The Motions of the Planets
The Places of the Planets
Direction, Place and Time
The Moon and Eclipses
The Sun and Eclipses
The Projection of Eclipses
Planetary Conjunctions
Of the Stars
Risings and Settings
The Moon’s Risings and Settings
Certain Malignant Aspects of the Sun and Moon
Cosmogony, Geography, and Dimensions of the Creation
The Gnomon
The Movement of the Heavens and Human Activity
Twenty five hundred years ago, the scripture denied that the Earth was flat and designated it a sphere! This was at a time when most everyone thought otherwise. Indeed, the west would continue to think so for centuries upon centuries to come. The scripture also gives remarkably accurate measurements for both the diameter and circumference of the Earth.
Just some of the miracles of this work include…
The average length of the tropical year as 365.2421756 days, which is only 1.4 seconds shorter than the modern value of 365.2421904 days!
The average length of the sidereal year, the actual length of the Earth’s revolution around the Sun, as 365.2563627 days, which is virtually the same as the modern value of 365.25636305 days. This remained the most accurate estimate for the length of the sidereal year anywhere in the world for over a thousand years!
Not content to limit measurements to Earth, the Surya Siddhanta also states the motion, and diameters of the planets! For instance the estimate for the diameter of Mercury is 3,008 miles, an error of less than 1% from the currently accepted diameter of 3,032 miles. It also estimates the diameter of Saturn as 73,882 miles, which again has an error of less than 1% from the currently accepted diameter of 74,580.
Aside from inventing the decimal system, zero and standard notation (giving the ancient Indians the ability to calculate trillions when the rest of the world struggled with 120) the Surya Siddhanta also contains the roots of Trigonometry.
It uses sine (jya), cosine (kojya or “perpendicular sine”) and inverse sine (otkram jya) for the first time!
“Objects fall on earth due to a force of attraction by the earth. therefore, the earth, the planets, constellations, the moon and the sun are held in orbit due to this attraction”.
It was not until the late 17th century in 1687, 1200 years later, that Sir Isaac Newton rediscovered the Law of Gravity.
The Surya Siddhanta also goes into a detailed discussion about time cycles and that time flows differently in differently circumstances, the roots of relativity. Here we have a perfect example of Indian philosophy’s belief that science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Unlike, say, Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) one does not have to dig and dig and try all ways to force scientific truth from scriptures. By contrast it is stated in cold hard numbers by the Sun God, Surya.
This work shows that spirituality is all about the search for Truth (Satya) and that Science is as valid a path to God as living in a monastery. It is the search for ones own personal Truth that will lead one ultimately to God.
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