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The oldest Sanskrit astronomical texts to survive were written around 600 A.D.
One of the most notable of these text is the Suryasiddhānta survives in a much
revised version. In 1858 Ebenezer Burgess published an annotated English
translation of this text, available now as Surya-Siddhanta, a text-book of Hindu
astronomy.*
Surya (Sanskrit) the Sun, its regent or informing divinity; in the Vedas, Surya is
the Sun-God. Surya presiding over the space of the solar system.
The Mount Meru may actually refer to the "center of the world”. In Indian
mythology Meru is a sacred mountain which is usually identified as the golden
mountain, the great central mountain of the world and the naval of the earth.
Verse 1.59 of the Suryasiddhānta gives the diameter of the Earth as 1600
yojanas. A yojana is a Vedic measure of distance used in ancient India The exact
measurement is disputed amongst scholars with distances being given between 6 to
15 km (4 and 9 miles). According to the Suryasiddhānta, the diameter of the Earth
is 1600 yojanas.
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*Ebenezer Burgess, Surya-Siddhanta: A Text Book of Hindu Astronomy,
Kessinger Publishing Company, 1998.
Figure 1. Earth globe. Verse 1.59 of the Suryasiddhānta gives the diameter of the
Earth as 1600 yojanas.
d = 46.99865415 m
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Area of the Circle A = 1734.843719 m² = Area of the Square B
C = 41.65145518 m
C = 41.65145518 m
Verse 1.59 of the Suryasiddhānta gives the diameter of the Earth as 1600 yojanas:
d = 8.979367488
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Circumference of the Circle A = 28.20949111 (Figure 2)
C = 88.62265518
d = 100
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Figure 4. The Great Pyramid is the central point of the Earth’s land mass
Suryasidhhānta explicitly mention that Mt Meru lies at the middle of the Earth
("bhoogola-madhya"), in the land of Jamboonada in Jamboodveepa (one of the
continents on the Earth): the Great Pyramid lies in the middle of the Earth and the
Great Pyramid is the Mt Meru from the Suryasidhhānta.
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