Indian Cosmology - Part 1

Graham Hancock said that we are a species with amnesia. I would go a step further and say that we are a species with selective amnesia. We seem perfectly comfortable acknowledging the intellectual contributions of certain parts of the world, assigning them neat timelines and unquestioned credit. But when it comes to other regions, equally rich in knowledge and insight, the story suddenly becomes hesitant, compressed, or conveniently vague. Indian history, unfortunately, often finds itself in this second category, where its intellectual legacy is repeatedly downplayed or boxed into timelines that do not quite make sense.

One of the strongest influences behind this narrative has been the work of David Pingree, whose scholarship has shaped how modern academia views the history of Indian astronomy. Pingree’s work is widely cited and respected, but it consistently presents Indian astronomical knowledge as largely derivative, suggesting that without Greek influence, Indo-Iranian astronomy would not have developed in any meaningful or original way. While his work carries authority, it also relies on a set of assumptions that deserve to be scrutinised.

After spending time directly with Vedic and Brahmana texts, it becomes difficult to reconcile Pingree’s conclusions with what these sources actually contain. The question is not whether Greek or Babylonian astronomy influenced India at later stages because cultural exchange is a historical fact, but whether early Indian astronomy has ever been studied on its own terms without a preconceived notion. When Vedic and Brahmana literature is routinely dismissed as “non-astronomical,” it shows a limitation in their research method rather than an absence of knowledge. I always say absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and in this case, it really comes down to the questionable quality of research by the earlier historians. 

Much of this problem comes from how astronomy itself is defined. Scholars like Pingree relied on an approach that places heavy emphasis on explicit mathematical formulation and clearly stated theory. Anything that does not look like this is pushed aside. As a result, texts that preserve astronomical understanding through ritual, cosmology, and actual observation simply are not considered. When such a dangerous position is assumed, the conclusion becomes predictable: if only late technical texts are allowed into the discussion, early Indian astronomy will naturally appear underdeveloped and dependent. The issue, however, is not with the tradition, but with the eyes through which it is viewed.

This becomes especially clear when we look at the precession of the equinoxes. Scholars working relying upon the framework established by David Pingree point out that Hipparchus was the first to formally theorise precession, and that Indian texts speak of it explicitly only from Acharya Aryabhatta’s Aryabhattiya onwards, around the 5th century CE, but conveniently left out texts like Aitareya Brahamana. 

It is important to remember that Indian knowledge systems developed within a strong oral tradition, one that relied far more on trained memory than on paper, stone, or clay tablets. Knowledge was transmitted as part of culture-oriented living and usually preserved through stories, verses, ritual structures, and mythology rather than through technical manuals. For instance, most people think of Maha Vishnu’s Vamanavatara as mythology but little did modern scholars recognise that it preserves early ways of thinking about space, scale, and measurement that later appear in astronomy and mathematics. Remember mensuration?

Rig Veda 1.154 describes Vishnu as the one who “measured out the earthly regions” by setting down three wide strides. Scholars either did not notice this or they dismissed this as mythology but this is a statement about space and order; mathematics and astronomy. This is similar to what we can term today as “mensuration”. The act of measuring is foregrounded, and space is presented as something that can be structured, divided, and comprehended through repeated movement. RV 1.154.1-2 does not speak in numbers or formulas, but it clearly assumes that the world has a measurable extent and that this extent can be accounted for through systematic action. 

In an oral culture, knowledge comes embedded in some story or ritual. A stride is one of the earliest and most universal units of human measurement. By using the image of three strides to encompass the world, the Rig Veda preserves an understanding of scale, proportional division, and total coverage without relying on written notation. Now, why do we need a textual tradition when the Indians were supremely capable with their minds? RV 1.154 very clearly presents a cosmological model in which space is finite, ordered, and knowable.

To dismiss such passages as mythology alone is to impose a modern expectation that mathematics must always present itself as explicit numerical procedure. RV 1.154 instead preserves a pre-formal stage of mathematical thought, where measurement precedes calculation and structure precedes abstraction. Later Indian astronomy and mathematics would express these ideas through angles, numbers, and equations, but the underlying way of thinking about space is already present in the Rig Veda. The verse therefore deserves to be read as evidence of an early engagement with measurement and cosmic order.

This mode of preservation is kind of unfamiliar to a modern Western academic mindset, which tends to privilege written theory over oral continuity. I recall an astrologer's comment on one of my social media posts, dismissing any claim based on oral tradition as unworthy of scholarly debate. While this struck me as a simplistic view, I also understood that non-Indians might unfortunately lack exposure to the unique Indian methods of learning and preserving knowledge. If you are honest in answering whether you have studied the Rig Veda or any other Vedic text, you will likely understand my current perspective.

The gap in comprehension of yesteryear historians should not be mistaken for a lack of knowledge. Absence of explicit theory in written form is not the same as absence of observation or understanding. In many cases, it simply reflects a disconnect between the cultural form in which knowledge was preserved and the framework used to evaluate or study it. Either way, any implication that Indian knowledge of precession or astronomy must have been borrowed from Greek sources is a clear red flag. 

A similar assumption is made in the case of tithi. Many scholars state that the concept of tithi was borrowed from the Babylonians. Such claims could possibly appear convincing only when someone does not actually engage with the early Indian texts themselves. If we read through the Rig Veda and the Brahmana literature, it becomes clear that lunar phases and the functional relationship between the Sun and the Moon are already present. The conclusion of borrowing, in this case, is more on inherited assumptions than on actual reading of the sources.

Babylonian lunar theory, as reconstructed by Asger Aaboe and Norman T. Hamilton, (Thanks to Tania Daniels) demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the solar–lunar relationship in computing the length of synodic months and predicting eclipses. However, this knowledge is organised within a strictly month-based framework, where the Sun–Moon relationship serves to adjust the length of the month rather than to define individual days. The calculations operate between conjunctions and oppositions and do not yield a continuous lunar-day unit. In contrast, the Indian concept of tithi structures time at the level of the day itself, based on the progressive angular separation of the Sun and Moon. The difference is therefore not one of observational capability, but of calendrical abstraction.

While Babylonian astronomy shows attention to lunar visibility, especially the first appearance of the crescent, this observational practice serves a limited calendrical role. The crescent functions as a threshold marker for the beginning of the month, after which time is reckoned in ordinary civil days. Babylonian lunar theory, as described by Aaboe and Hamilton, focuses on determining the total length of the synodic month and correcting it through solar and lunar anomaly terms. The Sun–Moon relationship is therefore used episodically, to regulate months and predict eclipses, rather than continuously to structure daily time. Although Babylonian lunar theory corrects the length of individual synodic months through solar and lunar anomaly terms, this process is not equivalent to the Indian concept of Adhika Masa. Babylonian corrections operate within the month, whereas Adhika Masa restructures the lunar year itself by inserting an intercalary month to maintain seasonal alignment.

Indian astronomy applies the solar–lunar relationship at a fundamentally different level. Instead of treating conjunction or visibility as a monthly boundary, Indian timekeeping transforms the changing angular relationship between the Sun and the Moon into a continuous unit of time known as the tithi. Each tithi represents a fixed increment of solar–lunar separation and functions as a lunar day that can begin or end at any moment, independent of sunrise or sunset. As a result, time itself becomes dynamic and flexible, capable of slipping across civil days rather than remaining fixed within them.

Again, this distinction is not necessarily in terms of observational astronomy but of calendrical system. Babylonian astronomy was good at regulating lunar months, yet it retains the civil day as its basic temporal unit. Indian astronomy, on the other hand, uses the Moon–Sun relationship to redefine the day itself. The tithi is therefore not an inevitable outcome of lunar observation, but a distinctive conceptual innovation that restructures time at a more granular level. The difference between the two traditions lies in how that knowledge was organised in relevance to their own times. I'd argue that Babylonians came in much later than the Indians, not to say that India is the cradle of civilisation and I will continue to present some evidences in my upcoming research findings.

There is a tendency to assume that knowledge must always appear first in the form of explicit theory, equations, or technical definitions. In reality, observation and understanding almost always come before explanation and mathematics. This is how knowledge develops in many pre-ancient cultures. By collapsing observation and theory into a single category, scholars miss entire layers of understanding that are preserved in ritual, cosmology, and practice rather than in formulae.

In the context of Indian history, this flawed method has unfortunately led to a pattern where only surface-level engagement is considered sufficient. When early texts do not resemble modern scientific writing, they are quickly dismissed or sidelined, and the remaining evidence is then shaped to fit an already established narrative. As a result, the possibility that Indian traditions preserved deep astronomical awareness long before its formal articulation is rarely explored with seriousness.

What is more troubling is how this narrative continues to circulate. It is no longer just the opinion of one scholar, but a kind of inherited consensus. Many later researchers repeat Pingree’s conclusions without returning to the primary Sanskrit sources or questioning the assumptions behind them. It is likely that Pingree just based his entire foundations on work of his predecessor without engaging in any form of fresh research. While this herd-mentality is considered normal, it is obviously very dangerous for authentic scholarship. This repetition creates a closed loop, where the failure to read or correctly interpret the texts is mistaken for a lack of knowledge, and eventually even for a lack of evidence.

My intention here is not to replace one rigid narrative with another. Rather, it is to encourage a more open and curious approach to India’s knowledge systems. Research that brings together texts with astronomy, geology, climatology, and archaeology provides a much richer and more realistic picture. More authentic Indology scholars such as Vedveer Arya, Raj Vedam, Subhash Kak, and Nilesh Oak offer alternative models that are certainly controversial and far from final. Yet they succeed in doing something essential: they introduce reasonable doubt into stories that have long been treated as unquestionable. That alone makes their work worth engaging with seriously.

What follows is the result of my research while developing an advanced course module in Indian astrology. This paper aims to explore, not argue, whether Indian texts demonstrate a genuine, independent understanding, distinct from Greek sources. By meticulously examining these texts, the goal is to establish a more accurate and realistic chronology for Indian knowledge systems than presented by previous scholarship.

Tithi

Tithi is one of the most fundamental concepts in Indian astronomy and astrology. It describes the lunar phases, the waxing and waning of the Moon, and, most importantly, the ongoing relationship between the Moon and the Sun. This system is often casually associated with Babylonian influence, and it is frequently assumed that Indian traditions must have borrowed it from Mesopotamian tradition. However, this attribution is based on an implication rather than on demonstrated evidence. There is no known Babylonian system equivalent to tithi, nor has any clear transmission pathway ever been established. At this point, the usual timeline stopped convincing me regarding the foundational assumptions and timelines established by earlier scholars. Specifically, did these researchers genuinely engage with the primary texts before formulating their conclusions about the concepts presented?

The persistence of this assumption appears to arise from a broader tendency in earlier scholarship to treat all lunar calendars as essentially similar, without studying the structural differences between them. Babylonian lunar understanding was primarily based on first visibility and month beginnings, whereas tithi represents a continuous, phase-based unit that can operate independently of the solar day. When the Brahmana literature is studied carefully, it is clear that functional lunar-phase and knowledge about it was already very much part of ritual and practice. Ignoring this material leaves earlier studies incomplete and weakly grounded.

Astronomical Understanding of Time in the Rig Veda

RV 10.85.2 tells us that Soma, the Moon, has its place among the constellations. It simply shows that the Moon was understood as moving against a fixed background of stars, implying the sidereal nature already and this will be explicit when we talk about the precession. This is an important point, because it means the sky is viewed as something structured and observable. The Moon’s position among fixed stars or the starry background mattered, and this understanding forms the foundation of Indian astronomy and astrology. 

RV 10.85.5 describes the Moon as something that “shapes the years.” This goes far beyond the obvious idea that the Moon creates days or months. It suggests that the year itself depends on the Moon in some way. The verse indicates an understanding that the solar year cannot be managed by the Sun alone, and that lunar cycles must be coordinated with it. This again leads to a practical experience with the mismatch between lunar months and the solar year, and preserves the idea that time needs adjustment and correction rather than simple counting.

RV 10.85.13 links specific ritual actions to days defined by nakshatras, such as Magha and the Arjunis. Here, a “day” is where the Moon is among the stars. This tells us that time was astronomically qualified. Ritual timing depended on tracking the Moon’s movement through the sky, not limited to sunrise or a fixed civil calendar. The verse also preserves a working system in which different days carry different qualities based on astronomical conditions.

RV 10.85.15-16 uses the image of a chariot with two wheels, one visible and the other concealed. The image shows two motions happening at the same time, but not in the same way. When applied to the Sun and the Moon, it shows the awareness that their cycles do not move together and are not equally easy to observe. This shows an early recognition that timekeeping involves managing overlapping and unequal astronomical cycles.

RV 10.85.18 clearly distinguishes the roles of the two luminaries. One observes all existence, while the other orders the seasons and is repeatedly born again. The Sun represents continuity and steadiness, while the Moon represents cyclical renewal. This reflects an understanding that seasonal order is not created by the Sun alone, but depends on repeated lunar cycles. The distinction is based on observation of natural patterns.

RV 10.85.19 says that the Moon “prolongs the days of our existence,” it directly helps us know that the days were not just understood as solar units. Instead, day-counting is influenced by lunar motion. This actually is present as references in the Surya Siddhanta. It also reflects the reality that lunar phases do not fall in line neatly with sunrise and sunset. Timekeeping, therefore, must adapt to this variability. From this verse, we can understand an everyday awareness of how lunar and solar time interact, and that time is not uniformly measured. 

RV 10.85 preserves a clear and practical understanding of how the Sun and Moon work together to regulate time. The knowledge is not mathematical or technical, but it is precise in its own way. It is based on observation, repetition, and lived experience of the sky. This is not speculative poetry, but a record of how time was actually understood and managed long before formal astronomical theory was written down.

Aitareya Brahmana

The Aitareya Brahmana belongs to a ritual world in which lunar phases are already familiar and meaningful. The text treats understanding Moon’s passing as part of the background knowledge shared by ritual practitioners. Lunar conditions enter naturally into the structure of ritual action, appearing through the identification of specific deities with New Moon and Full Moon states and through the organisation of offerings that depend on these conditions.

This mode of presentation tells us something important about how knowledge functioned in the Vedic context. The Aitareya Brahmana assumes that its audience already knows how to recognise lunar phases and does not feel the need to spell this out. Lunar time is embedded directly into ritual performance. The timing of offerings, the identity of invoked deities, and the structure of the sacrifice itself all presuppose awareness of the Moon’s changing condition.

What is preserved here is not theory but understanding through practice. Lunar time operates as a lived and habitual reality rather than as a formally articulated system. The Aitareya Brahmana therefore reflects a culture in which lunar awareness is already integrated into daily and ritual life, long before such knowledge is later formalised or systematised in technical texts.

When we begin to ask when such a ritual world could have functioned, we must change our method. The Aitareya Brahmana itself does not provide a historical date, nor should we expect it to. It actually preserves a relationship between ritual time, cosmic order, and the observation of the sky. That relationship must be evaluated against external constraints such as astronomy, climatology, and environmental history and not just textual references, for textual basis is only the beginning of gathering evidence.

One such constraint is the Saraswati river system, which the Rig Veda and the Brahmana literature treat as a living and dominant geographical reality. Geological and palaeoclimatic research has established beyond reasonable doubt that the Saraswati had largely dried up by around 1900 BC. A ritual and cosmological system that presupposes an active Saraswati cannot plausibly originate centuries after its disappearance. The western research for the most part has this fact conveniently. This helps us comfortably place the Vedic and Brahmana ritual world well before the commonly proposed 2nd millennium BCE dates.

A second constraint comes from astronomy itself. The ritual logic surrounding beginnings, renewals, and cosmic order in the Brahmana texts comes in line most naturally with an equinoctial framework so that the rituals are in alignment with the seasons. This was important in all pre-ancient cultures that goes much earlier than the Greek civilisation. Following this logic and studying the Indian astronomical tradition, which associates Aditi with the nakshatra Punarvasu, we see a very interesting information coming out of it from a timeline perspective. Astronomical reconstruction (Stellarium) shows that the vernal equinox occurred near Punarvasu Nakshatra (Castor-Pollox) roughly around 6000 BC. This certainly makes the case that Aitareya Brahmana explicitly records an equinox or although it doesn't explicitly preserve a dated memory. However, it suggests that the ritual structures encoded in the text reflect a cosmological reality consistent with that period. Given that the Aitareya Brahmana preserves the precise methods and timing of calendrical observation-based rituals, and Vedic practitioners strictly adhered to these seasonal rituals, with the Vernal Equinox being a critical reference point, it is reasonable to suggest the text was composed around 6000 BC. For me, this creates a reasonable doubt to start scrutinising the existing timelines and authenticity attributed to Indian knowledge systems.

My conclusion does not rely on the idea of cultural memory passively preserving obsolete astronomical alignments. Why would anyone refer or point towards a past alignment? Brahmana ritual injunctions are operative directions, not something of the past. They exist to regulate living practice, performance of rituals at the right day and right time; therefore presuppose an astronomical reality that is (was) functionally present, not historically recalled. A ritual system grounded in continuous observation cannot be based on an astronomical alignment that no longer exists, as such a system would immediately lose efficacy. The calendrical structures reflected in the Aitareya Brahmana must therefore correspond to an astronomical framework that was active and valid at the time the ritual system took shape, that is 6000 BC.

The usual response from western scholarship is either silence or the suggestion that these elements must represent later insertions. Such explanations are not arguments; they are assumptions based on the belief that early cultures could not possess sophisticated observational knowledge unless it appeared in explicitly mathematical form. Arguments of later interjections deserve to be rejected. 

When the Aitareya Brahmana is read on its own terms, we won’t fail to notice a mature ritual culture already operating within a sophisticated understanding of lunar time, seasonal order, and cosmic structure. If we place this evidence alongside independent geological and astronomical data, a timeline reaching back towards the 6th millennium BCE is not a speculation, but a reasonable and methodologically defensible inference.

Lunar Time and Ritual Precision in Satapatha Brahmana (SB)

The Satapatha Brahmana (1.6) preserves one of the clearest early explanations of lunar time as a functional and operative principle in Vedic ritualism. SB 1.6 discusses the Darsha and Purnamasa ceremonies, rituals performed specifically at the New Moon and Full Moon. I am not getting into Darhsa or Punamasa itself in this essay but what is striking is the way they are treated as indispensable and technically precise moments in time.

The text states that the same ritual offering prepared on eight potsherds for Agni is required on both occasions, at the New Moon and at the Full Moon. This immediately establishes that these two lunar conditions are concrete ritual moments that recur cyclically and demand exact observance. The ritual depends on the actual state of the Moon.

This distinction is important. A calendar based on fixed solar days would have no difficulty assigning rituals to dates. However, the Satapatha Brahmana does not proceed in this manner. It assumes that the practitioner understands when the Moon is truly New or Full, regardless of whether that moment occurs during the day or the night. In doing so, the text implicitly recognises that lunar phases do not always align with sunrise and sunset, and that ritual time cannot be reduced to ordinary day-counting.

The sacrifice is said to “attract” the gods only when performed correctly, and ritual success depends on proper execution rather than repetition. The insistence on indispensability at both New Moon and Full Moon helps us understand that these phases are distinct and non-interchangeable. Performing the rite at the wrong time would not simply be an error of scheduling; it would undermine the ritual itself. 

What comes from this discussion is a clear example of lunar time operating independently of the civil day. Although the text does not introduce numerical divisions of the lunar month or define technical units of time, it does not need to. The intended audience already knows how to recognise these lunar conditions. The Satapatha Brahmana is not teaching observation from scratch; it is assuming an observational culture in which lunar phases are tracked with care and integrated into ritual life.

Satapatha Brahmana therefore preserves an early and practical awareness of what later Indian astronomy would formalise more explicitly: that lunar time “floats” with respect to solar days, and that meaningful temporal units can be defined by the relationship between the Sun and the Moon rather than by the clock or the calendar. The Satapatha Brahmana stands at an intermediate stage in this development as part of Yajur Veda, where lunar-day logic is fully operative even though it has not yet been expressed in mathematical or terminological form.

The text presents strong evidence that sophisticated lunar timekeeping existed in the Vedic ritual tradition long before later technical treatises systematised it. The emphasis here is on correct practice and that practice relies on precise lunar observation.

An Ongoing Exploration

My attempt here has been simple in intention, even if it has wandered or digressed or rambled in my execution. I wanted to step directly into the Vedic and Brahmana texts and see what they actually say, without first filtering them through commonly agreed timelines that were never questioned. What I have found, even in this early and imperfect exploration, is that much of the earlier scholarship appears to have paid very little attention to the internal logic of these texts before making confident claims about the history of Indian cosmological ideas. 

As I spent time with the Rig Veda, the Aitareya Brahmana, and the Satapatha Brahmana, it became clear to me that these texts operate within a ritual and observational world that is already mature. Lunar time, seasonal order, and cosmic structure are not introduced and they are assumed and it is expected that the reader will understand and know the underlying meaning. They function as background knowledge shared by practitioners who were very comfortable working with the sky. This is where I began to doubt how casually such materials have been dismissed as non-astronomical or pre-scientific or mythological. 

I am not claiming that this essay settles the question of timelines conclusively. What it has done for me is expose how fragile many accepted narratives are once we stop relying on secondary summaries and begin reading the primary sources seriously. The tendency to attribute Indian cosmological knowledge to late borrowing or external influence seems to arise before any sustained engagement with the texts themselves. The problem may not lie in the evidence, but in how little of it has been examined with patience.

This exploration began as a rambling curiosity, driven by discomfort with explanations that never quite sat right. It has now become clear to me that there is far more work to be done. I intend to continue examining these texts, not to force them into modern categories, but to understand how knowledge functioned within their own cultural and observational framework. Questions of time, ritual, astronomy, and cosmology in the Indian tradition deserve to be approached with far greater care than they have received so far.

If this piece achieves anything, it is in reopening questions that were too quickly closed. For me, that is enough reason to keep going. My exploration of the Vedic texts, which are often overlooked by most scholars, is ongoing, and I intend to continue writing about my findings.

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