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Traditional Wisdom of Astronomy |
| Answer» <html><body><p>mark me as brainlistExplanation:Development of astronomy in India has come a long way since the Vedic times and now ISRO <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/heads-1016558" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about HEADS">HEADS</a> our space exploration and research in astronomy. When mentioning Indian astronomy, an image that automatically comes to our mind is that of the Jantar Mantar. It was built by Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur in the eighteenth century. These collections of huge instruments for astronomical observations were fundamentally based on ancient India’s astronomy texts. Five Jantar Mantars were built to revise the calendars and make a more accurate collection of tables that could predict the motions of the major stars and planets. This data was to be used for more accurate time measurement, improved predictions of eclipses and better tracking of positions of stars and planets with relation to earth. They are so large in scale that it is supposed to have been aimed at increasing their accuracy. In the Jantar Mantar, one can find the world’s largest sundial and literally see the sun’s shadow move every second. Records also show that <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/telescopes-664778" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about TELESCOPES">TELESCOPES</a> were built and used in certain observations. This kind of accuracy helped produce in those ages some remarkably accurate results, which even contemporary Europeans could not beat. One important lesson to learn from the Jantar Mantars is that the Raja built five of them. He could have built just one and been happy with the results. He built five so that the results given by one observatory could be <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/verified-2323104" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about VERIFIED">VERIFIED</a> against those of another. This kind of verification obviously reduced the human error 15involved when taking readings on an instrument. Also, the five observatories were in five different cities. Thus, one could check the position readings of heavenly bodies from different parts of earth and again verify the overall results. This shows a strong display of the scientific enquiry method in the <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/minds-1096987" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about MINDS">MINDS</a> of our past astronomers. The ideas behind Jantar Mantar came from ancient Indian texts written by Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Bhaskaracharya and others. The most important texts of ancient Indian astronomy had been compiled between the fifth and fifteenth century CE— the classical era of Indian astronomy. The more familiar ones among these works are Aryabhatiya, Aryabhatasiddhanta, Panchasiddhantika and Laghubhaskariyam. Ancient Indian astronomers were notable in several respects. Their achievements are even more baffling considering they never used any kind of telescopes. They put forth the sun-centric theory for the solar system, elliptical orbits for planets <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/instead-516622" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about INSTEAD">INSTEAD</a> of circular ones, reasonably accurate calculations for the length of a year and the Jaipur’s Nadi Valve Yantra tells you the sun’s hemispheric position. Traditional Wisdom of Astronomy 156 Indian Contributions to Science earth’s dimensions, and the idea that our sun was no different from the countless other stars in the night sky. Somewhere during the Middle Ages, progress in the field of astronomy stood still and an admixture of astronomy and astrology arose. With colonization, the European school of astronomy displaced our own. The last remarkable astronomer in pre-Independence India was Samanta Chandrasekhara. His book Sidhant Darpana and his use of simple instruments in getting accurate observations earned him praise even from the British. In our present era, the Indian space programme stands on the contributions made by two giants in the field of physics— Homi J Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai. It was their tireless efforts, which initiated work in space research under the Department of Atomic Energy.</p></body></html> | |