Post on 30-Apr-2018
FOCUS
•We work on ORIGIN OF ASTRONOMY
India and elsewhere.
•We hope that this will provide a window
to the intellectual growth of Indian
civilisation.
2
PROGRESS
• After:
• More than 40 papers,
• 7 international conferences,
• 5 Indian conferences,
• 3 books,
• 2 Ph D’s and several student projects,
• 2 dozen collaborators,
• 5 reviews,
• 1 externally funded project later,
We think we have made some progress in bringing a framework under
which work can be classified and compared.
3
RELATION TO OTHER FIELDS
5
We have created a narrative of interaction of astronomy with other intellectual
activities inspired by the painting above (Hebber) in TIFR Collection.
7
The web of human intellectual activity
Science
Art
Architecture
Myths
Religion
Biology
Maths
Astronomy
Performing Arts
Visual Arts
Heroes
Natural Forces
Gods
Moral
Sepulchral
Residential
METHOD AND APPROACH
• Study of ancient astronomy is a study of a
wide range of human intellectual growth.
•Our work has involved:
• Field work and survey of sites,
• Literature survey, data collection and data
analysis,
• Evaluation of evidence,
• Collaborations with other institutions,
• Simulations. 8
OTHER ISSUES
• We also studied related topics. This included:
• Studies of Indus Script and Civilisation,
• Simulations of movement of people,
• Setting up of experimental setup to understand,
composition of the material evidence.
• We are involved in setting up a major experimental
facility for Carbon dating using an Atomic Mass
Spectroscopy.
9
SOME OF OUR STUDIES
• Rock art.
• Ancient Megaliths including:
• Classical megaliths,
• Stone circles,
• Inscriptions,
• Temples.
• Ancient myths and tribal astronomy.
• Ancient manuscripts including Sanskrit literature for records
of astronomical observations.
• Simulations of Ancient structures.10
ROCK ART AND ARCHITECTURE STUDIES
• Rock art in Kashmir shows the earliest record of supernova.
• Stone circles of Nagpur region and cup-marks on suggest
specific directions are being marked.
• We have studied several Megalithic sites in South India and
shown them to have relation to astronomy and could have
been observatories.
• Location and arrangement of important caves of Ajanta which
was decided by their directional significance.
• Markendeya temple in Kashmir which has interesting
directional significance.11
MONTH
1 Winter Solstice: December
2/12
3/11
4/10 Equinox: March/ September
5/ 9
6/8
7 Summer Solstice: June
12
Observatory at Dholavira
HARAPPAN CIVILISATION AND HARAPPAN CULTURE
• Harappan civilisation was a Bronze Age Civilisation.
• We have identified an astronomical in Dholavira.
• We have shown that the symmetries and designs created by
the Harappans are not easy to create and would have required
significant amount of understanding of geometry and
technology.
• We have also worked on Harappan script.
• We worked on the organisation and art of Harappan
Civilisation.
13
HARAPPAN SCRIPT
• We have worked extensively on Indus Script.
• Starting with entirely computational, model
independent studies, we have been able to
demonstrate that:
• Indus Script is highly structured,
• The rules of writing are very well defined,
• Writing style admits of enough flexibility to permit coding
of information in a manner similar to other writing systems.
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STUDIES OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE
• We have studies astronomical references in ancient
literature.
• This has allowed us to track records like records of
Mars in Taurus, Saptarshi calendar.
• Accuracy of astronomical formulation of
Varahamihira.
• Date some of the ancient events.
15
ANCIENT RECORDS OF ECLIPSES
• Catalogued ~1000 eclipse records from 400 AD to 1800 AD.
• Comparing the path of eclipse as derived from multiple
observations in India with the simulation by NASA suggests
that there are significant deviations. These could be:
• The records may have been made by calculations rather than
observations.
• Due to genuine problems with our understanding of the Earth Moon
system.
• The work is now being extended by creating a comprehensive
Asian catalogue of eclipses in collaboration with Korean,
Chinese and Japanese colleagues.16
CONTRADICTIONS
A.R.70
(1941;
137)
Rachanapall
e,
Anantapur
Dist.,
Andhra
Pradesh
Chalukya
of
Kalyana,
Jagadeka
malladeva
II
1024 A.D.,
Jun 9
Partial
Solar
eclipse
A.R.452
(1959;
93)
Chitapur
Tq.,
Gulbarga
Dist.,
Karnataka
Chalukya
of
Kalyana,
Tribhuvan
amalla,
1024 A.D.,
Jun 9
Partial
Solar
eclipse
A.R.553
(1958;
80)
Hirekerur
Tq.,
Dharwar
Dist.,
Karnataka
Chalukya
of
Kalyana,
Jagadeka
malladeva
II
1024 A.D.,
Jun 9
Partial
Solar
eclipse
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TRIBAL ASTRONOMY
• We have studied the astronomy of 3 ancient tribes of
Central India.
• These are Gond, Kolams and Banjras.
• Even though that cohabit the same region and often
the same village, their astronomical traditions are
completely different from each other.
• They are also very different from conventional
beliefs.
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PLEIADES IN DIFFERENT CULTURES
Banjaras: A
piece of
Jewellery Kolams: A flock of
birds
Gonds: A handful of stones thrown at
the bird sitting where Orion lies. 19
SIMULATIONS AND NETWORK STUDIES
• We have used a host of statistical analysis and computational
techniques to understand:
• Network of parameters that organise a civilisation,
• Time evolution of the complexity of Harappan culture,
• Distribution of Harappan sites over time and space,
• Understand how an ancient astronomical observatory can be detected.
• We have also created a generalised model of movement of
population across Euro Asia. This model which assumes a
certain functional affinity of population to water and flat land
allows us to calculate how people move across terrains.
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EXPERIMENTAL ACTIVITY
• Mobile XRF facility to study rare element composition
in various archaeological objects. The facility has
been used to study ancient coins, bones, potteries
etc.
• Setting up a Carbon AMS facility for carbon studied.
These will allow:
• Create a carbon calibration map for India
• Date ancient objects containing organic matter
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INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
• We have been involved in 2 international collaborations:
• The first one is in South China where local researchers found an
ancient site that seemed promising. Hence an international team
consisting of American, Australian, Chinese, British and Indian
researchers to evaluate the site.
• The second one is an attempt to create a comprehensive
database of eclipse records in Asia to understand the subtleties
of the Earth Moon system in collaboration with our Japanese
Colleagues.23
EVOLUTION OF SCIENCE
• As an aside I have been studying the evolution of science.
• Evolution of science can be divided into 3 different phases:
• Ad hoc method of early human.
• Pragmatic approach of early formal studies.
• Axiomatic approach of modern science.
• Each of these methods had their style, contents and insights.
• We speculate that with the increase in complexity of modern
science, the axiomatic approach is reaching its limit and the
emerging trends in science are beginning to approach they
style of pragmatic approach.24
MY COLLABORATORS
• We have worked with more than 2 dozen researchers but the primary
members of the work presented here involve:
• Nisha Yadav
• Shrikant Janawlekar
• Srikumar Menon
• Aniket Sule
• Riza Abbas
• Rajesh Rao
• B V Subbarayappa
• B S Shylaja
Etc.25