Astronomy, Astrology and the Scientific temper Prof. K. Pappootty

1. Astronomy, Astrology and the Scientific temper Prof. K. Pappootty

2. Science and technology have made great strides in recent times, especially in the fields of communication, computer technology, transportation, health sciences and space science. LHC and the James Webb Telescope are readying to explore the micro and macro worlds.

3. India is racing to the forefront of science. our Chandrayan found traces of water on Moon. Number of stars with planets have crossed 500 of which about 30 have multiple planets. Recent findings: Gliese 581, some 20 l. yrs away has 6 planets of which one is in the habitable zone.

4. Down here, on Earth genetic codes are being broken, genetic structures are modified and new life forms are evolved. Evolution is no more nature’s secret. We are on the verge of creating artificial life itself from non-living things.

5. And still…are we headed towards a scientific society? We accept all products of science and technology-like cell phones, computers, GPS… and rejects the method of science like primacy to observation, experimenting and scientific reasoning.

6. Most Indians believe that our lives are predetermined by fate which depends on Karma of the previous births. Why is it that Karma of all Indians, especially those of the BIMARU states and of Africa went so bad, while those of Europeans and Americans went good.

7. Our political leaders are at the feet of godmen, begging for their blessings. Even our space scientists perform poojas before launching rockets. They have more faith in their deities than in their science!

8. Do you think that the educated are less gullible than the illiterate? No, sometimes the converse is true. In Cochin, hundreds of beds fitted with magnets were sold for 1.25 lakhs a piece. Educated rich like doctors, professors, advocates, businessmen bought them.

9. They were told that our blood has haemoglobin in it, and it contains iron, a magnetic material. So it will improve their health. The uneducated won’t understand this argument and will not buy, even if rich. We know, iron in haemoglobin is not magnetic.

10. A vastu expert may tell you that all your ill health is due to your sleeping, with body in the north-south direction. Earth’s magnetic field causes the damage, again due to haemoglobin. Originally this faith came from the myth of Yama, the god of death.

11. Vastu has such hold on educated rich that they don’t do any construction without consulting vastu experts. If some misfortune occurs, they consult another expert. Now the Chinese Fengshuei is becoming popular.

12. All kinds of Yantras, magical rings and luck bringing jewels are advertised in print as well as visual media. The target is the educated rich. Advts of junk food and wonder medicines are also aimed at them.

13. Astrology, the mother of all superstitions, is making roaring business in India. People have such belief in it that even if predictions fail, they attribute it as the failure of the astrologer, and not of astrology.

14. Astrology is astronomy in its infancy + infinite number of tricks to cheat the gullible. Earth is still the centre of the universe for it and the heavenly bodies are gods and goddesses. Let us see how it originated.

15. Astrology in its old sense means study of stars. It had several socially relevant applications. One was time reckoning.

16. Both sun and stars move 1o westward in every 4 min. In all ancient civilizations, the priestly class developed astrology, since they needed to know exact time during night to perform various religious rites.

17. They identified suitable stars for every season which rose in the evening and set in the morning. They noticed that each star rise everyday 4 min. earlier than the previous day. They didn’t understand why. The geocentric world view they held couldn’t explain it.

18. Now we understand that it is Earth that is rotating about its own axis at the rate of 1o in every 4 min., and also going round the sun about 1o in one day, causing a delay of 4 min. in sunrise everyday.

20. As civilizations developed, trade between distant countries also developed. Since there were no roads, they had to travel knowing the direction of their destination.

21. The Babylonians, had to cross deserts to go anywhere outside their country. So they could travel only during night. They found that certain stars could tell the directions better than the sun. No wonder Babylonians became the best astronomers of ancient times

25. Indians created beautiful myths, often as memory aids. The story of Dhruva, Saptarshis and Thrisanku are famous. There are similer myths through out the world.

26. Another wonderful development, was the idea of Lunar constellations or birth stars. Moon goes round Earth in 27 1/3 days, spending each day in the company of a prominent star or a group of stars. They identified 27 such ‘Nakshatras’ each having a space of 13 1/3o .

27. The first Nakshatra or birth star is Aswini (Aswathi), a group of 3 stars in the shape of ‘Aswamukha’ or horse head. If a child is born when moon is near Aswini, its birth star is said to be Aswini.

28. The next day Moon will be in Bharani, Then it will go to Kritika (Karthika), the seven sisters, then to Rohini (the Hyades) in the shape of letter V, and so on. After 27 days the Moon will come back to Aswini.

31. 27 1/3 Days is the length of a sidereal Lunar month. The Nakshtras were very useful in counting days, eg. if a child was born in Aswini and today is Magha then evidently it is 10 days old. In those days Indians had no 7 day week

32. When agriculture and social activities developed, all old civilizations felt the need for a good calendar. Initially they developed the Lunar calendars of 12 months. Length of months were reckoned either from new moon to new moon or from full moon to full moon

33. Both have 29.53 days. So they took the length of alternate months as 29 and 30

34. Babylonians developed the solar calendar in detail. They noticed that sun shifts its position 1o eastward everyday with respect to the background stars

35. It completes a full circle around Earth in 365 days. The circle is called the ecliptic. They never thought that it is Earth that is going round sun

36. Initially Bablylonians divided the ecliptic into 36 decans of 10o each. Sun spends 10 days in each decan and at the end of 36 decans 5 uncounted days were introduced. Later they discarded the decanal system and divided the ecliptic into 12 constellations of 30o each.

38. The time that sun takes to cross one such constellation is called a month. Months were named after the constellations. Aries or Mesha is in the shape of a sheep and when Sun is in Mesha, the month also is known as Mesha. Similarly Taurus (Rishabha or the bull), Gemini (Mithuna, the twins), Karkita (Cancer, the crab) etc..

41. Since the Moon’s path and Sun’s path are from west to east, many stars are common to both. All the 27 Nakshatras are included in the 12 constellations, so that each constellation has 21/4 Nakshathra. Moon spends one day and Sun 13-14 days in each Nakshathra.

43. Babylonians were the first to distinguish planets from stars. planets were wanderers. Sun, Moon and venus were planets. They were called ‘Samash’ ‘Sin’ and ‘Ishtar’, the three gods in the sky who protected ‘bel’ the Earthgod.

44. When Jupiter was recognized as a planet, it was named ‘Marduk’ the founder god of Babylon city. Similarly Mars became ‘Nergel’, the god of wars, Saturn ‘Ninurta’ the god of the underworld and Mercury ‘Nebu’, the god of learning-all heroes from Babylonian mythology.

45. Later generations began to worship planets themselves as gods. When these ideas spread to Greece, then the whole of Europe and to India, they also gave names to planets taken from their mythologies, but still their characters were kept the same

46. Thus Mars of Romans and ‘Kuja’ of Indians are warrier gods and hence maleficent. Similar is the case of Saturn (Sani). Jupiter (Vyazha or Brihaspathi) and Venus (Sukra) are beneficent planets and so on.

47. All the planets go through the zodiac and they exhibited certain features which astonished people. Most often they move from west to east, but at times they stop moving and then reverse their motion (the retrograde motion) and again after some time regain the prograde motion

49. Also their brightness, especially those of Venus and Mars vary greatly

50. They thought that planets have a will of their own and their power also varies greatly. The geocentric world view they held could not explain these features and this may be one reason for considering planets as supernatural beings governing man’s destiny