V
ASTRONOMY IN THE RIG VEDA
[Reprinted from the Report of the Actes of the Twelfth Oriental Congress held at Rome]
Not much more than a hundred years ago the Sanscrit language began to yield to the study of Europeans some of its literary treasures. Almost on the moment, a controversy arose as to the antiquity of the science of astronomy in India; for scholars were amazed to find in this already long dead language many learned astronomical treatises, besides complete instructions for calculating, year by year, the Hindu calendar, as also for calculating horoscopes.
Some then proclaimed the wonderful facts revealed, and extolled the antiquity and accuracy of this Indian science, while others, noticing the many points of resemblance between European and Indian methods, supposed, and warmly advocated the opinion, that much of the astronomy contained in Sanscrit works had been borrowed from the Greeks.
Sir William Jones was amongst the first to enter the lists against this Grecian theory; and he thus throws down his glove in defence of the antiquity and originality of the science of astronomy in India.
“I engage to support an opinion (which the learned and industrious M. Montucla seems to treat with extreme contempt) that the Indian division of the Zodiack was not borrowed from the Greeks or Arabs, but, having been known in this country (India) for time immemorial, and being the same in part with that used by other nations of the old Hindu race, was probably invented by the first progenitors of that race before their dispersion.”[43]
[43] On the Antiquity of the Indian Zodiack. Complete Works, vol. i. p. 333.
Since Sir William Jones wrote this challenge, and supported it with whatever linguistic and scientific resources were at his command, volumes of heated controversy by many authors have been devoted to the same subject.
Just at present, however, an almost indifferent calmness has taken the place of the excited interest formerly manifested. The majority of scholars, both European and Indian, appear to have accepted, as an axiom, the opinion that much of Indian astronomy, and certainly the Indian acquaintance with the twelve-fold division of the Zodiac, is to be attributed to Grecian influence.
A minority of writers still hold the view advocated by Sir William Jones about a hundred years ago, and thus reiterated by Burgess (the translator of the Indian standard astronomical work the Sûrya-Siddhânta) in 1860. “The use of this (twelve-fold) division, and the present names of the signs, can be proved to have existed in India at as early a period as in any other country.”[44]