Chapter 1 Astronomy

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Anno Domini Nostri Iesu (Jesu) Christi ("In the Year of the Lord Jesus Christ") 1268 in a little village called Cambridge north west of... (More) Anno Domini Nostri Iesu (Jesu) Christi ("In the Year of the Lord Jesus Christ") 1268 in a little village called Cambridge north west of London, a group of workmen began constructing what would become in time one of the great learning centers of Europe and the world. But in 1068 Europe was largely a backwater. The writings of the ancient Greeks were largely lost, and it was only after Toledo and its world famous library was reconquered from the Moorish rulers of Andalusia and Southern Spain in 1085 CE that Europe was able to make strides in the various branches of knowledge thanks to the large number of Arab documents that now fell into the hands of the Spaniards at one of the greatest libraries of the middle ages. For example, Ptolemy’s Almagest (from the Arabic Al Majisti ) was translated into Latin from Arabic reputedly by a Gerard of Cremona in 1175 CE. This was the sole text in Astronomy for the majority of the people in Europe during the ensuing centuries, till the 17th century

But throughout history, and especially thanks to the Arabs, the work of the Hindus was increasingly available to the Europeans. In 1068 CE Saad Al-Andalusi, as far as we are aware, the first historian of Science and as his name indicates from Moorish Spain, wrote Kitab Tabaqut al-Umam in Arabic(Book of Categories of Nations)). The book was translated into English by Alok Kumar in 1992. To quote Saad al Andalusi “To their credit, the Indics have made great strides in the study of numbers and of geometry. They have acquired immense information and reached the zenith in their knowledge of the movements of the stars (astronomy) and the secrets of the skies (astrology) as well as other mathematical studies. After all that, they have surpassed all the other peoples in their knowledge of medical science and the strengths of various drugs, the characteristics of compounds and the peculiarities of substances.

This much is largely uncontested. But when and how did the transformation take place from a scientifically backward region of the world to the technologically most advanced one, all in the space of less than 500 years. We contend that theft of intellectual property played a very large role. Over the years the memory of this massive borrowing (and theft )from the non-European parts of the universe has been largely suppressed by many deliberate acts , especially by the Vatican and institutionalized in the 15th century Law of Christian Discovery to the point where the ordinary European today does not have a clue as to the beginnings of the renaissance and the widespread illiteracy and backwardness that was prevailing during the 16 centuries between the fall of the Grecian civilization (the end of the Ptolemy’s, when Grecian Egypt was subjugated by Rome ) and the beginning of the renaissance , which was coincident with the conquest of Meso America.

We pick the example of calendrical astronomy or the history of the calendar to illustrate, as a typical example, the extraordinary lengths that the occidental would resort to, in order to deny the astronomical heritage of India. The occidental does not deny that there were extensive contacts between Greece and India especially after the invasion of Alexander, but he is loathe to admit the possibility that any of this happened to the benefit of the Greeks

The name Calendar is itself of Roman origin and originates from kalendae "calends" the first day of the Roman month -- when debts fell due and accounts were reckoned -- from calare "to announce solemnly, call out," as the priests did in proclaiming the new moon that marked the calends. Regardless of the context or the region where the Calendar first got initiated, the design of a Calendar has never been a mathematically elegant exercise. This is so because there are not an exact number of days in either the lunar month or the solar year and there are not an integer number of months in a year. To put it in pithy terms, these quantities are n (Less)