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Vedic Origins of the Zodiac - Part 3 
May 4, 2007 |
| Vedic Astrology Diary Archives |
By Dr.
David Frawley
- continued from Vedic
Origins of the Zodiac - Part 2
and
Vedic Origins of the Zodiac - Part 1
The zodiac in Vedic thought is the wheel of the Sun. It is the
circle created by the Sun’s rays. The Shatapatha Brahmana
X.5.4 notes, "But, indeed, the Fire-altar also is the
Sun. The regions are its enclosing stones, and there are 360
of these, because 360 regions encircle the Sun on all sides.
And 360 are the rays of the Sun."
The Zodiac and the Subtle Body
Clearly this hymn contains a vision of the zodiac but its purpose
is not simply astronomical, nor is the zodiac the sole subject
of its concern. Besides the outer zodiac of time and the stars
there is the inner zodiac or the subtle body and its chakra
system. The seven chakras mentioned are also the seven chakras
of the subtle body. In Vedic thought the Sun that rules time
outwardly corresponds inwardly to Prana, the spirit, soul or
life-force (Maitrayani Upanishad VI.1). Prana is the inner Sun
that creates time at a biological level through the process
of breathing. It is also the energy that runs up and down the
spine and flows through the seven chakras strung like lotuses
along it.
According to Vedic thought (Shatapatha Brahmana XII.3.28)
we have 10,800 breaths by day and by night or 21,600 a day.
This corresponds to one breath every four seconds. The same
text says that we have as many breaths in one muhurta (1/30
of a day or 48 minutes) as there are days and nights in the
year or 720, so this connection of the outer light and our
inner processes is quite detailed at an early period.
In Vedic thought the subtle body is composed of the five elements,
the five sense organs and five motor organs, which correspond
to different aspects of its five lower chakras .On top of
these five are the mind and intellect (manas and buddhi) which
are often compared to the Moon and the Sun and relate to the
two higher chakras. They can be added to these other five
factors, like the five planets, making seven in all. The chakras
of Dirghatamas, though outwardly connected to the zodiac,
are inwardly related to the subtle body, a connection that
traditional commentators on the hymn like Sayana or Atmananda
have noted.
This hymn of Dirghatamas contains many other important and
cryptic verses on various spiritual matters that are connected
to but go beyond the issues of the zodiac. It is written in
the typical Vedic mantric and symbolic language to which it
provides two keys;
39. The supreme syllable of the chant in the supreme ether,
in which all the Gods reside, those who do not know this, what
can they do with the Veda? Those who know it alone are gathered
here.
45. Four are the levels of speech. Those trained in the
knowledge, the wise know them all. Three hidden in secrecy cannot
be do not stir. Mortals speak only with the fourth.
There is clearly a hidden knowledge behind these verses, which
reflect an esoteric tradition of spiritual knowledge that
was mainly accessible for initiates who had the keys to open
its veils. We cannot simply take such verses superficially
but must look deeply and see what they imply. Then the pattern
of their inner meaning can come forth. If we do this, the
astronomical and astrological side cannot be ignored.
David Pingree’s Views
Western scholars of the history of astronomy like David Pingree
have accepted the astronomical basis of this hymn. In an article,
"Astronomy in India" in Astronomy Before the Telescope,
C. Walker (ed.), St. Martin's Press, New York, 1996, pps. 123-124,
Pingree suggests that Mul. Apin, Babylonian tablets that date
from 687 to 500 BC has "’an ideal calendar' in which
one year contains 12 months, each of which has 30 days, and
consequently exactly 360 days; a late hymn of the Rig Veda refers
to the same ‘ideal calendar’. And Mul. Apin describes
the oscillation of the rising-point of the sun along the eastern
horizon between its extremities when it is at the solstices;
the same oscillation is described in the Aitareya Brahmana.
This ideal calendar is the basis for the zodiac and its twelve
signs at a mathematical level. Clearly Pingree is referring
to Rig Veda I.164 as his ‘late’ hymn of the Rig
Veda.
To quote from David Pingree’s "History of mathematical
astronomy in India," in the Dictionary of Scientific
Biography, C.S. Gillespie (ed.), pp. 533-633, Charles Scribners,
New York, 1981, page 534: "In the case of the priority
of the Rig Veda to the Brahmanas, it is not always clear that
the views expressed in the latter developed historically after
the composition of the former. All texts that can reasonably
be dated before ca. 500 BC are here considered to represent
essentially a single body of more or less uniform material."
The point of his statement is to try to get such Rig Veda references
as those of Dirghatamas later than the Brahmana texts as both
reflect a similar sophisticated astronomy, which is necessary
to make it later than the Babylonian references and a product
of a Babylonian influence as he proposes. This requires reducing
all the layers of Vedic literature to a more or less uniform
mass at a very late date, which is contrary to almost every
view of the text.
Clearly this Rig Veda hymn, which has parallels and developments
in the Brahmanas (like the Shatapatha Brahmana quoted in this
chapter), must be earlier and show that such ideas were much
older than the Brahmanas. To maintain his late date for Vedic
astrology, Pingree must assume that this hymn or its particular
astronomical verses were late interpolations to the Rig Veda,
around 500 BCE or about the time of the Buddha. This is rather
odd because the Buddha is generally regarded as having come
long after the Vedic period, while the actual text is usually
dated well before 1000 BCE (some have argued even to 3000
BCE).
Even the Brahmanas, like the Upanishads that come after them,
are pre-Buddhist by all accounts. Perhaps the main Vedic ritual
given in the Brahmanas, the Gavamayana, follows the model
of a year of 360 days and is divided into two halves based
upon the solstices, showing that such an ‘ideal’
calendar was central to Vedic thought. That such an ideal
calendar has its counterpart in the sky is well reflected
in Vedic ideas saying that equate the days and nights with
the Sun’s rays and with the stars (as we have noted
in Shatapatha Brahmana with 720 Upanakshatras)*. The Brahmanas,
we should also note, emphasize the Krittikas or the Pleiades
as the first of the Nakshatras, reflecting an astronomical
era of the Taurus equinox. The Shatapatha Brahmana notes that
the Krittikas mark the eastern direction.
In addition, the hymn, its verses and commentaries on them
are found in many places in Vedic literature, along with support
references to Nakshatras. It cannot be reduced to a late addition
but is an integral part of the text.
That being the case, a zodiac of 360 degrees and its twelvefold
division are much older in India than any Greek or even Babylonian
references that he has come up with.
Pingree also tries to reduce the ancient Vedic calendar work
Vedanga Jyotish to 500 BCE or to a Babylonian influence. However,
the internal date of this late Vedic text is of a summer solstice
in Aslesha or 1300 BCE, information referenced by Varaha Mihira
in his Brihat Samhita (III.1-2). "There was indeed
a time when the Sun’s southerly course (summer solstice)
began from the middle of the Nakshatra Aslesha and the northerly
one (winter solstice) from the beginning of the Nakshatra Dhanishta.
For it has been stated so in ancient works. At present the southerly
course of the Sun starts from the beginning of Cancer and the
other from the initial point of the sign Capricorn."
The middle of Ashlesha is 23 20 Cancer, while the beginning
of Dhanishta (Shravishta) is 23 20 Capricorn. Calculating the
precession accordingly, this is obviously a date of around 1300
BCE.
There are yet earlier references in the Vedas like Atharva Veda
XIX.6.2 that starts the Nakshatras with Krittika (the Pleiades)
and places the summer solstice (ayana) in Magha (00 –
13 20 Leo), showing a date before 1900 BCE. These I have examined
in detail in my book Gods, Sages and Kings (Lotus Press).
Clearly the Vedas show the mathematics for an early date for
the zodiac as well as the precessional points of these eras
long before the Babylonians or the Greeks supposedly gave them
the zodiac.
It is not surprising that India could have invented the zodiac
and circle of 360 degrees. After all, the decimal system and
the use of zero came from India. In this regard, as early
as the Yajur Veda, we find names for numbers starting with
one, ten, one hundred and one thousand ending with one followed
by twelve zeros (Shukla Yajur Veda XVII.2).
The Rig Veda has another cryptic verse that suggests its cosmic
numerology. According to it, "The Cosmic Bull has four
horns, three feet, two heads and seven hands" (Rig Veda
IV.58.3). This sounds like a symbolic way of presenting the
great kalpa number of 4,320,000,000 years. Such large numbers
for the universe are typical to Indian thought, but scholars
such as Pingree would also ascribe them to a Babylonian origin.
However, the literature suggests the opposite.
reprinted with permission
Copyright 2007. Vaughn Paul
Manley. All Rights Reserved. |
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