In this talk, the speaker presents ‘Sources and Texts’, discussing Indian advances in Astronomy from an ancient period all the way to the modern period. The speaker establishes the great antiquity of Indian astronomy and quells the distorted narratives spun by the left academia. The story spun by the Linguistics theories position India as a young civilization, which long after the onset of “Aryans” in 1500 BCE became literate. Western accounts assert that Indians learnt their astronomy via Babylon and Ancient Greece. However, textual accounts of Indian Astronomy encode phenomena far more ancient that the assertions made by the Linguistic theories are blown out of the water.

About The Talk:–

The speaker brings out contrary evidence in various sources and texts ranging from Purana literature with stories encoding astronomy to Siddhanta texts with mathematics of celestial bodies. It becomes clear how from ancient times, Indians created celestial calendars for time-keeping, and in the process, recorded various astronomical phenomena.

The development of mathematical tradition in astronomy for the purposes of modelling, measuring, tracking and prediction of celestial bodies becomes apparent. These models also underwent refinement as over time effects of precession and modelling inaccuracies became prominent. The speaker also presents works of famous ancient Indian astronomers and thus, seals the discussion on the antiquity of Indian astronomy and the Indian civilization itself.

About Speaker:

Dr Raj Vedam holds a doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering with many years of multi-disciplinary experience, and has developed a strong research interest in the history of sciences, mathematics and technology. His research shows unacknowledged but significant contributions of ancient Indians to sciences and math, impacting several civilizations over different periods of time.

While Western texts on the subject enforce a parochial narrative sourcing all sciences and math from ancient Greece or Rome or Egypt, Raj Vedam presents contrary facts and evidence to show their indebtedness to the Indian civilization. He has presented his findings in over 200 public talks, several teacher training workshops, several research publications, and offers two courses on the same at Hindu University of America.