ANCIENT ASTRONOMY: by Fred J. Dick, M. Inst. C. E.
IN perhaps no department of thought has appreciation of the achievements of antiquity been more inadequate than in that of astronomy. This is all the more remarkable when we remember that many facts have been published and are accessible, amply sufficient to convince any unbiased student as to the hoary antiquity of the science; and also as to the fact that in the remotest times it was a science whose exactitude surpassed that of modernity because based upon immense periods of observation and a profound knowledge of the harmonious laws underlying celestial motions; in comparison with which knowledge our generalizations and mathematical triumphs pale into insignificance.
Such statements are hardly likely to meet ready acceptance from those who have not yet realized the immense antiquity of the human race, the cyclic rises and falls of nations and races coeval with vanished continents, and the fact that there were times when humanity had divine instructors in the arts and sciences. Yet without some recognition of these basic ideas it is hardly possible to comprehend even faintly the significance of some statements made in the Sûrya-Siddhânta—one of the oldest treatises on astronomy extant. There are many others—perhaps thousands—but they are not accessible at the present time, probably because they would be still less understood.
Another thing hardly likely to be appreciated in some quarters is the fact that on account of the intimate connexion between the facts of astronomy and cyclic laws affecting human destiny, this science for long ages was one of the sacred sciences, and its deeper mysteries were carefully guarded—as they are still, for that matter.
This last consideration throws an interesting light on the performance of Hipparchos (whom our text-books dub "the father of astronomy"), for he was not only silent as to the sources of his facts, but his data have been shown to be inconsistent with his methods, and are only explainable when calculated out on the principles enunciated in the Sûrya-Siddhânta. In short, he has been thus shown to have had access to Eastern sources of information, while at the same time some things were withheld.
This is but an instance of a policy which had been pursued for a very considerable period anterior to the time of Hipparchos. Just so much was given as would afford a stimulus for investigation; for humanity entered upon novel and strenuous conditions some five thousand years ago, and has had to win for itself a new path in science, as in other departments of activity.
Key-notes are sounded, and instruction given, at cyclic periods; yet man must win his own path to knowledge, and guarded sources of information could not help him, until he prove himself morally as well as intellectually fitted to advance.
This brings us naturally to a survey of modern achievement in astronomy, and the conclusion is almost irresistible that it has reached a point where further light must come, if only the enthusiastic followers of this kingly science would raise their eyes from the mechanical skeleton they have built so laboriously, and realize that the universe is living and conscious—in the interstellar spaces, as well as in the little fiery-looking balls that float therein. We should remember that it is part of human destiny to enter into the wider consciousness which alone holds the master-clues.
The above conclusion is supported by the statement of Simon Newcomb that the unsolved problems of astronomy seem to increase with every year, instead of diminishing.
It is a curious reflection, in these days of "exact" science, that real exactitude can only be obtained, as in pure mathematics, by proceeding from universals to particulars, never from particulars to universals. Yet the latter method has perforce to be adopted when no other way is in sight. That it fails, is shown by the simple fact that few of the "elements" or "constants" in modern astronomy are exactly known. No tables have yet been constructed, based upon purely mathematical formulae, which represent the actual motions, say of the superior planets. Those in the Nautical Almanac are simply derived from such hypothetical formulae, with corrections found necessary by experience extended over what is an almost ludicrously insufficient term of years. We should like to see the astronomical formula in use which would show that the obliquity of the ecliptic, 23,000 years ago, was slightly more than 27°. No longer ago than August 1905 an eclipse of the sun began twenty seconds before the predicted time.
Fortunately our astronomers do not live in ancient China, or they might have been beheaded for this want of accuracy!
On the other hand, the achievements in the domain of theory during the last two centuries or less have been so remarkable that it is to be hoped the methods and facts given in the Sûrya-Siddhânta may yet receive some attention from competent mathematicians, once they perceive their importance. The apparent discrepancies with modern facts, it may be pretty safely asserted, will be found to yield valuable results upon careful analysis.
Investigators will find that, contrary to the assumptions of some critics of Eastern chronology, a "year" does not mean a day, nor a month—although it is sometimes called "a day of the gods" in Eastern writings.
One of the first things to arrest attention in the Sûrya-Siddhânta is that in a "great age" of 4320 thousand years there are exactly forty revolutions of the Earth's apsides, one revolution of which occupies 108 thousand years. (Young's General Astronomy, § 199.) The line of apsides is the major axis of the Earth's orbit. Here we glimpse a basic connexion between the great cycles of time and the apsidal revolutions.
Let us quote a few aphorisms from Book I of this ancient work.
27. By their [the planets'] movement the revolution is accounted complete at the end of the asterism Revatî.
29. In an age the revolutions of the Sun ... are 4,320,000.
30. Of the Moon 57,753,336.
31. ... of Jupiter 364,220.
32. ... of Saturn 146,568.
33. Of the Moon's apsis 488,203. Of its node, in the contrary direction 232,238.
34. Of asterisms 1,582,237,828.
36. ... From rising to rising of the Sun are reckoned terrestrial civil days.
37. Of these there are in an age 1,577,917,828. Of lunar days 1,603,000,080.
From these figures we find the mean value of the sidereal year during a cycle of 4320 thousand years to be 0.002403 of a day longer than at present, which of course means that there are slow changes in the length of the orbital major axis.
There is a point worthy of attention regarding the asterism Revatî, to which these revolutions are referred, and which is thus seen to mark the origin of the Hindû movable zodiac. The precise star has either disappeared, or has not, so far, been publicly indicated. But the place of the origin was carefully calculated in 1883, and found to have a longitude of about 20.5 degrees. Again, from the numerous facts connected with the important epoch of 3102 b. c., which marked the beginning of the current cycle of 432,000 years (See Traité de l'Astronomie Indienne et Orientale, by M. Bailly, M. Acad. Franç., 1787), its place was about five degrees westward of the other. This shows it to have a positive movement of 4´´ per year, giving one complete revolution in 324,000 years.
This proper motion, if that of an actual star, is of the same order of magnitude as that of many stars. It would perhaps be interesting to glance at the relation between stellar movements and the greater cycles dealt with in ancient astronomy, for all analogy would indicate revolution in orbits to be a general law; and moreover, probabilities would indicate that our system is not too remote from the center of the stellar system. Assuming the average cross speed to be twenty miles per second, stars at 7 light-years distance would make one revolution while the Earth's apsides made four. Those at 70 light-years, one in a "great age." Those at the estimated distance of the farthest visible stars, 5000 light-years, would perform a revolution in just one manvantara of 308 million years.
Doubtless all such revolutions are superposed on other lesser revolutions down to those known, as in cases of double stars, etc. And it may be suggested that there are not improbably a number of axes of revolution, or rather principal planes of revolution, having some harmonious mutual inclination.
In order properly to relate the above mean value of the sidereal year to its present value, we should have to know our place in this cycle of 4320 thousand years; and the same observation applies to the other figures. We may return to this point at another time, as the necessary data are given in the same work. The effect of stellar proper motions, already referred to, would have to be considered.
The figures for the Moon make the mean value of the sidereal month 1.103 seconds longer than its present estimated value.
Those for Jupiter make its mean sidereal period about a quarter of a day shorter than the present one of 4332.58 days; while those for Saturn come out 6.55 days more than the present period of 10,759.22 days.
The methods of calculation and tables connected with the Sûrya-Siddhânta were rigorously applied by M. Bailly to an observed interval extending from the epoch in 3102 b. c. to a certain moment on May 21, 1282 of our era, at Benares—a period of 4383 years and 94 days; and the mean place of the Moon thus found was less than a minute of arc different from that calculated for the same interval by the modern tables of Cassini. An astronomy which could achieve a result like this by methods and tables at least five thousand years old, points to the enormous duration of some prior high civilization.
The precessional movement of 54´´, peculiar to the Sûrya-Siddhânta, being referred to "Revatî" with its 4´´ direct motion, gives 50´´, like ours.
It is as well perhaps to recall what Iamblichus states:
The Assyrians have not only preserved the memorials of seven and twenty myriads [270,000] of years as Hipparchos says they have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases [planetary sidereal periods] and periods of the seven rulers of the world. (Proklos on Plato's Timaios, Bk. 1.)
H. P. Blavatsky, commenting on this, says it is
about 850,000 years since the submersion of the last large island (part of the Continent), the Ruta of the Fourth Race, or the Atlantean; while Daitya, a small island inhabited by a mixed race, was destroyed about 270,000 years ago, during the glacial period or thereabouts. But the Seven Rulers, or the seven great Dynasties of the divine kings belong to the traditions of every great people of antiquity. (The Secret Doctrine, I, 651.)
She also informs us that
The chronology and computations of the Brâhman Initiates[2] are based upon the Zodiacal records of India, and the works of ... Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astronomy, among other things, to mankind. (The Secret Doctrine, II, 49.)
[2] But these are not the modern Brâhmans, as is clearly explained in H. P. Blavatsky's own writings.—F. J. D.