Jainism does not support belief in a creator deity. According to Jain doctrine, the universe
and its constituents—soul, matter, space, time, and principles of
motion—have always existed. All the constituents and actions are
governed by universalnatural laws.
It is not possible to create matter out of nothing and hence the sum
total of matter in the universe remains the same (similar to law of conservation of mass). Jain text claims that the universe consists of jiva (life force or souls) and ajiva (lifeless objects). The soul of each living being is unique and uncreated and has existed since beginningless time.
The Jain theory of causation
holds that a cause and its effect are always identical in nature and
hence a conscious and immaterial entity like God cannot create a
material entity like the universe. Furthermore, according to the Jain
concept of divinity, any soul who destroys its karmas and desires achieves liberation (nirvana).
A soul who destroys all its passions and desires has no desire to
interfere in the working of the universe. Moral rewards and sufferings
are not the work of a divine being, but a result of an innate moral
order in the cosmos; a self-regulating mechanism whereby the individual reaps the fruits of his own actions through the workings of the karmas.
Through the ages, Jain philosophers have rejected and opposed the concept of creator and omnipotent God and this has resulted in Jainism being labeled as nastika darsana or atheist philosophy by the rival religious philosophies.
The theme of non-creationism and absence of omnipotent God and divine
grace runs strongly in all the philosophical dimensions of Jainism,
including its cosmology, karma, moksa and its moral code of conduct. Jainism asserts a religious and virtuous life is possible without the idea of a creator god.
Jaina conception of the Universe
Representation of Universe in Jain cosmology in form of a lokapurusa or cosmic man.
Jain scriptures reject God as the creator of universe. Jainism offers
an elaborate cosmology, including Heavenly beings/Devas. These Heavenly
beings are not viewed as creators, they are subject to suffering and
change like all other living beings, and must eventually die. If
godliness is defined as the state of having freed one's soul from karmas
and the attainment of enlightenment/Nirvana and a God as one who exists
in such a state, then those who have achieved such a state can be
termed Gods/Tirthankara. Thus, Mahavira was God/Tirthankara.
According to Jains, this loka or universe is an entity,
always existing in varying forms with no beginning or end. Jain texts
describe the shape of the universe as similar to a man standing with
legs apart and arms resting on his waist. Thus, the universe is narrow
at top, widens above the middle, narrows towards the middle, and once
again becomes broad at the bottom.
Wheel of time
Jain Cosmic Wheel of Time
According to Jainism, time is beginningless and eternal. The cosmic wheel of time rotates ceaselessly. This cyclic nature eliminates the need for a creator, destroyer or external deity to maintain the universe.
The wheel of time is divided into two half-rotations, Utsarpiṇī or ascending time cycle and Avasarpiṇī, the descending time cycle, occurring continuously after each other. Utsarpiṇī is a period of progressive prosperity and happiness where the time spans and ages are at an increasing scale, while Avsarpiṇī is a period of increasing sorrow and immorality.
Concept of reality
This universe is made up of what Jainas call the six dravyas or substances classified as follows –
Jīva - The living substances
Jains believe that souls (Jīva) exist as a reality, with a separate existence from the body that houses it. It is characterised by cetana (consciousness) and upayoga (knowledge and perception).
Though the soul experiences both birth and death, it is neither
destroyed nor created. Decay and origin refer respectively to the
disappearance of one state of soul and appearance of another, both
merely various modes of the soul.
Ajīva - Non-Living Substances
Pudgala or Matter - Matter is solid, liquid, gas, energy, fine karmic materials and extra-fine matter or ultimate particles. Paramānu or ultimate particles are the basic building block of matter. One quality of paramānu and pudgala
is permanence and indestructibility. It combines and changes its modes
but its qualities remain the same. According to Jainism, it cannot be
created nor destroyed.
Dharma-tattva or Medium of Motion and Adharma-tattva or Medium of Rest - Also known as Dharmāstikāya and Adharmāstikāya,
they are distinct to Jain thought depicting motion and rest. They
pervade the entire universe. Dharma-tattva and Adharma-tattva are by
itself not motion or rest but mediate motion and rest in other bodies.
Without dharmāstikāya motion is impossible and without adharmāstikāya rest is impossible in the Universe.
Ākāśa or Space - Space
is a substance that accommodates living souls, matter, the principles
of motion and rest, and time. It is all-pervading, infinite and made of
infinite space-points.
Kāla or Time - Time
is a real entity according to Jainism and all activities, changes or
modifications are achieved only in time. Time is like a wheel with
twelve spokes divided into descending and ascending: half with six
stages of immense durations, each estimated at billions of "ocean years"
(sagaropama). In each descending stage, sorrow increases and at each ascending stage, happiness and bliss increase.
These uncreated constituents of the universe impart dynamics upon the
universe by interacting with each other. These constituents behave
according to natural laws without interference from external entities. Dharma or true religion according to Jainism is vatthu sahāvo dhammo translated as "the intrinsic nature of a substance is its true dharma."
Material cause and effect
According to Jainism, causes are of two types – Upādanā kārana (substantial or material cause) and Nimitta kārana (instrumental cause). Upādanā kārana is always identical with its effect. For example, out of clay, you can only produce a clay pot; hence the clay is the upādanā kārana
or material cause and clay pot its effect. Wherever the effect is
present, the cause is present and vice versa. The effect is always
present in latent form in the material cause. For transforming the clay
to pot, the potter, the wheel, the stick and other operating agents are
required that are merely nimitta or instrumental cause or catalysts in
transformation. The material cause always remains the clay. Hence the
cause and effect are always entirely identical in nature.
Potter cannot be the material cause of pot. If this were the case,
then Potter might as well prepare the pot without any clay. But this is
not so. Thus a clay pot can only be made from clay; gold ornaments can
be made only from gold. Similarly the different modes of existence of a
soul are a result of activities of soul itself. There cannot be any
contradiction or exceptions.
In such a scenario, Jains argue that the material cause of a living soul with cetana (conscious
entity) is always the soul itself and cause of dead inert matter
(non-cetana i.e. without any consciousness) is always the matter itself.
If God is indeed the creator, then this is an impossible predication as
the same cause will be responsible for two contradictory effects of cetana (life) and acetana (matter). This logically precludes an immaterial God (a conscious entity) from
creating this Universe, which is made up of material substances.
The soul
According to Jainism, Soul is the master of its own destiny. One of the qualities of the soul is complete lordship of its own destiny.
The soul alone chooses its actions and soul alone reaps its
consequences. No God or prophet or angel can interfere in the actions or
the destiny of the soul. Furthermore, it is the soul alone who makes
the necessary efforts to achieve liberation without any divine grace.
Jains frequently assert that “we are alone” in this world. Amongst the Twelve Contemplations (anupreksas)
of Jains, one of them is the loneliness of one's soul and nature of the
universe and transmigration. Hence only by cleansing our soul by our
own actions can we help ourselves.
Jainism thus lays a strong emphasis on the efforts and the freewill of the soul to achieve the desired goal of liberation.
Jaina conception of divinity
Image of a Siddha: the soul who attains Moksa; although the Siddhas (the liberated beings) are formless and without a body, this is how the Jain temples often depict the Siddhas.
According to Jainism, gods can be categorized into Tīrthankaras, Arihants or ordinary Kevalins and Siddhas. Jainism considers the Devīs and Devas to be celestial beings who dwell in heavens owing to meritorious deeds in their past lives.
Arhats
Arihants,
also known as Kevalins, are "Gods" (supreme souls) in embodied states
who ultimately become Siddhas, or liberated souls, at the time of their nirvana.
An Arihant is a soul who has destroyed all passions, is totally
unattached and without any desire and hence has destroyed the four ghātiyā karmas and attain kevala Jñāna, or omniscience. Such a soul still has a body and four aghātiyā karmas. An Arhata, at the end of his lifespan, destroys his remaining aghātiyā karma and becomes a Siddha.
Tīrthankaras
Tīrthankaras
(also known as "Jinas") are Arihants who are teachers and revivers of
the Jain philosophy. There are 24 Tīrthankaras in each time cycle; Mahāvīra
was the 24th and last Tīrthankara of the current time cycle.
Tīrthankaras are literally the ford makers who have shown the way to
cross the ocean of rebirth and transmigration and hence have become a
focus of reverence and worship amongst Jains. However it would be a
mistake to regard the Tīrthankaras as gods analogous to the gods of Hindu pantheon despite the superficial resemblances in Jain and Hindu way of worship. Tīrthankaras like Arhatas ultimately become Siddhas on liberation. Tīrthankaras,
being liberated, are beyond any kind of transactions with the rest of
the universe. They are not the beings who exercise any sort of creative
activity or who have the capacity or ability to intervene in answers to
prayers.
Ultimately all Arihants and Tīrthankaras become Siddhas. A Siddha is a
soul who is permanently liberated from the transmigratory cycle of
birth and death. Such a soul, having realized its true self, is free
from all the Karmas and embodiment. They are formless and dwell in Siddhashila
(the realm of the liberated beings) at the apex of the universe in
infinite bliss, infinite perception, infinite knowledge and infinite
energy. Siddhahood is the ultimate goal of all souls.
Jains pray to these passionless Gods not for any favours or
rewards but rather pray to the qualities of the God with the objective
of destroying the karmas and achieving the Godhood. This is best understood by the term – vandetadgunalabhdhaye i.e. we pray to the attributes of such Gods to acquire such attributes”
Heavenly beings – Demi-gods and demi-goddesses
Jainism describes existence of śāsanadevatās and śāsanadevīs, the attendant Gods and Goddesses of Tīrthankaras, who create the samavasarana or the divine preaching assembly of a Tīrthankara.
“
These Gods tainted with attachment and passion;
having women and weapons by their side, favour some and disfavour some;
such Gods should not be worshipped by those who desire emancipation”
”
Worship of such gods is considered as mithyātva or wrong belief leading to bondage of karmas. However, many Jains are known to worship to such gods for material gains.
Nature of Karmas
According to Robert Zydendos, karma in Jainism
can be considered a kind of system of laws, but natural rather than
moral laws. In Jainism, actions that carry moral significance are
considered to cause certain consequences in just the same way as, for
instance, physical actions that do not carry any special moral
significance. When one holds an apple in one's hand and then let go of
the apple, the apple will fall: this is only natural. There is no judge,
and no moral judgment involved, since this is a mechanical consequence
of the physical action.
Hence in accordance with the natural karmic laws, consequences
occur when one utters a lie, steals something, commits acts of senseless
violence or leads the life of a debauchee. Rather than assume that
moral rewards and retribution are the work of a divine judge, the Jains
believe that there is an innate moral order to the cosmos,
self-regulating through the workings of karma. Morality and ethics are
important, not because of the personal whim of a fictional god, but
because a life that is led in agreement with moral and ethical
principles is beneficial: it leads to a decrease and finally to the
total loss of karma, which means: to ever increasing happiness.
Karmas are often wrongly interpreted as a method for reward and
punishment of a soul for its good and bad deeds. In Jainism, there is no
question of there being any reward or punishment, as each soul is the
master of its own destiny. The karmas can be said to represent a sum
total of all unfulfilled desires of a soul. They enable the soul to
experience the various themes of the lives that it desires to
experience. They ultimately mature when the necessary supportive conditions required for maturity are fulfilled.
Hence a soul may transmigrate from one life form to another for
countless of years, taking with it the karmas that it has earned, until
it finds conditions that bring about the fruits.
Hence whatever suffering or pleasure that a soul may be
experiencing now is on account of choices that it has made in past. That
is why Jainism stresses pure thinking and moral behavior. Apart from Buddhism, perhaps Jainism is the only religion that does not invoke the fear of God as a reason for moral behavior.
The karmic theory in Jainism operates endogenously. Tirthankaras
are not attributed "absolute godhood" under Jainism. Thus, even the
Tirthankaras themselves have to go through the stages of emanicipation,
for attaining that state. While Buddhism does give a similar and to some
extent a matching account for Shri Gautama Buddha, Hinduism maintains a totally different theory where "divine grace" is needed for emanicipation.
The following quote in Bhagavatī Ārādhanā (1616) sums up the predominance of karmas in Jain doctrine:
“
There is nothing mightier in the world than karma;
karma tramples down all powers, as an elephant a clump of lotuses.
”
Thus it is not the so-called all embracing omnipotent God, but the
law of karma that is the all governing force responsible for the
manifest differences in the status, attainments and happiness of all
life forms. It operates as a self-sustaining mechanism as natural
universal law, without any need of an external entity to manage them.
Jain opposition to creationism
Jain
scriptures reject God as the creator of universe. 12th century Ācārya
Hemacandra puts forth the Jain view of universe in the Yogaśāstra as thus
“
This universe is not created nor sustained by anyone;
It is self sustaining, without any base or support
”
Besides scriptural authority, Jains also resorted to syllogism and deductive reasoning to refute the creationist theories. Various views on divinity and universe held by the vedics, sāmkhyas,
mimimsas, Buddhists and other school of thoughts were analysed, debated
and repudiated by the various Jain Ācāryas. However the most eloquent
refutation of this view is provided by Ācārya Jinasena in Mahāpurāna as thus
“
Some foolish men declare that creator made the world. The doctrine that
the world was created is ill advised and should be rejected.
If God created the world, where was he before the creation? If you
say he was transcendent then and needed no support, where is he now?
How could God have made this world without any raw material? If
you say that he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with
an endless regression.
If you declare that this raw material arose naturally you fall
into another fallacy, For the whole universe might thus have been its
own creator, and have arisen quite naturally.
If God created the world by an act of his own will, without any
raw material, then it is just his will and nothing else — and who will
believe this silly nonsense?
If he is ever perfect and complete, how could the will to create
have arisen in him? If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could
no more create the universe than a potter could.
If he is form-less, action-less and all-embracing, how could he
have created the world? Such a soul, devoid of all modality, would have
no desire to create anything.
If he is perfect, he does not strive for the three aims of man, so what advantage would he gain by creating the universe?
If you say that he created to no purpose because it was his
nature to do so, then God is pointless. If he created in some kind of
sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble.
If he created because of the karma of embodied beings [acquired
in a previous creation] He is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to
something else
If out of love for living beings and need of them he made the
world, why did he not make creation wholly blissful free from
misfortune?
If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be
free: Nor if involved in transmigration, for then he would not be
almighty.
Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God makes no sense at
all.
And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself
created. If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did
he create such beings in the first place?
Good men should combat the believer in divine creation, maddened by an evil doctrine.
Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning or end, and is based on the principles, life and rest.
Uncreated and indestructible, it endures under the compulsion of its own nature.
”
Criticisms of Jain non-creationist theory
Jainism along with Buddhism has been categorized as atheist philosophy i.e. Nāstika darśana by the followers of Vedic religion. However, the word Nāstika corresponds more to heterodox rather than atheism. Accordingly, those who did not believe in Vedas and rejected Brahma as the creator of Universe were labeled as Nāstika.
Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson, an Irish missionary,
declared that “the heart of Jainism is empty” since it does not depend
on beseeching an omnipotent God for salvation. While fervently appealing
to accept Christianity,
she says Jains believe strongly in forgiving others, and yet have no
hope of forgiveness by a higher power. Jains believe that liberation is
by personal effort not an appeal for divine intervention. “The Heart of Jainism” was written from her missionary point of view without respecting Jain sensibilities.
If atheism is defined as disbelief in existence of a God, then
Jainism cannot be labeled as atheistic, as it not only believes in
existence of gods but also of the soul which can attain godhood. As Paul Dundas
puts it – “while Jainism is, as we have seen, atheist in a limited
sense of rejection of both the existence of a creator God and the
possibility of intervention of such a being in human affairs, it
nonetheless must be regarded as a theist religion in the more profound
sense that it accepts the existence of divine principle, the paramātmā
i.e. God, existing in potential state within all beings”.
The Jaina position on God and religion from a perspective of a non-Jain can be summed up in the words of Anne Vallely.
“
Jainism is the most difficult religion. We get no help from any gods,
or from anyone. We just have to cleanse our souls. In fact other
religions are easy, but they are not very ambitious. In all other
religions when you are in difficulty, you can pray to God for help and
maybe, God comes down to help. But Jainism is not a religion of coming
down. In Jainism it is we who must go up. We only have to help
ourselves. In Jainism we have to become God. That is the only thing.
A star map with a cylindrical projection. Su Song's star maps represent the oldest existent ones in printed form.
Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, with its origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory: vestiges of these are still found in astrology, a discipline long interwoven with public and governmental astronomy. It was not completely separated in Europe
during the Copernican Revolution starting in 1543. In some cultures,
astronomical data was used for astrological prognostication.
Ancient astronomers were able to differentiate between stars and planets,
as stars remain relatively fixed over the centuries while planets will
move an appreciable amount during a comparatively short time.
Calendars of the world have often been set by observations of the Sun and Moon (marking the day, month and year), and were important to agricultural
societies, in which the harvest depended on planting at the correct
time of year, and for which the nearly full moon was the only lighting
for night-time travel into city markets.
Since 1990 our understanding of prehistoric Europeans has been
radically changed by discoveries of ancient astronomical artifacts
throughout Europe. The artifacts demonstrate that Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans had a sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and astronomy.
Among the discoveries are:
Bone sticks from locations like Africa and Europe from possibly
as long ago as 35,000 BCE are marked in ways that tracked the moon's
phases.
The Warren Field calendar in the Dee River valley of Scotland's Aberdeenshire. First excavated
in 2004 but only in 2013 revealed as a find of huge significance, it is
to date the world´s oldest known calendar, created around 8000 BC and
predating all other calendars by some 5,000 years. The calendar takes
the form of an early Mesolithic
monument containing a series of 12 pits which appear to help the
observer track lunar months by mimicking the phases of the moon. It also
aligns to sunrise at the winter solstice, thus coordinating the solar
year with the lunar cycles. The monument had been maintained and
periodically reshaped, perhaps up to hundreds of times, in response to
shifting solar/lunar cycles, over the course of 6,000 years, until the
calendar fell out of use around 4,000 years ago.
Goseck circle is located in Germany and belongs to the linear pottery culture.
First discovered in 1991, its significance was only clear after results
from archaeological digs became available in 2004. The site is one of
hundreds of similar circular enclosures built in a region encompassing Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic during a 200-year period starting shortly after 5000 BC.
The Nebra sky disc is a Bronze Age
bronze disc that was buried in Germany, not far from the Goseck circle,
around 1600 BC. It measures about 30 cm diameter with a mass of 2.2 kg
and displays a blue-green patina (from oxidization) inlaid with gold
symbols. Found by archeological thieves in 1999 and recovered in
Switzerland in 2002, it was soon recognized as a spectacular discovery,
among the most important of the 20th century.
Investigations revealed that the object had been in use around 400
years before burial (2000 BC), but that its use had been forgotten by
the time of burial. The inlaid gold depicted the full moon, a crescent
moon about 4 or 5 days old, and the Pleiades
star cluster in a specific arrangement forming the earliest known
depiction of celestial phenomena. Twelve lunar months pass in 354 days,
requiring a calendar to insert a leap month every two or three years in
order to keep synchronized with the solar year's seasons (making it lunisolar).
The earliest known descriptions of this coordination were recorded by
the Babylonians in 6th or 7th centuries BC, over one thousand years
later. Those descriptions verified ancient knowledge of the Nebra sky
disc's celestial depiction as the precise arrangement needed to judge
when to insert the intercalary month
into a lunisolar calendar, making it an astronomical clock for
regulating such a calendar a thousand or more years before any other
known method.
The Kokino site, discovered in 2001, sits atop an extinct volcanic cone at an elevation of 1,013 metres (3,323 ft), occupying about 0.5 hectares overlooking the surrounding countryside in Macedonia. A Bronze Ageastronomical observatory
was constructed there around 1900 BC and continuously served the nearby
community that lived there until about 700 BC. The central space was
used to observe the rising of the sun and full moon. Three markings
locate sunrise at the summer and winter solstices and at the two
equinoxes. Four more give the minimum and maximum declinations of the
full moon: in summer, and in winter. Two measure the lengths of lunar
months. Together, they reconcile solar and lunar cycles in marking the
235 lunations
that occur during 19 solar years, regulating a lunar calendar. On a
platform separate from the central space, at lower elevation, four stone
seats (thrones) were made in north-south alignment, together with a
trench marker cut in the eastern wall. This marker allows the rising
sun's light to fall on only the second throne, at midsummer (about July
31). It was used for ritual ceremony linking the ruler to the local sun
god, and also marked the end of the growing season and time for harvest.
Golden hats of Germany, France and Switzerland dating from 1400-800 BC are associated with the Bronze Age Urnfield culture. The Golden hats are decorated with a spiral motif of the Sun and the Moon. They were probably a kind of calendar used to calibrate between the lunar and solar calendars. Modern scholarship has demonstrated that the ornamentation of the gold leaf cones of the Schifferstadt type, to which the Berlin Gold Hat
example belongs, represent systematic sequences in terms of number and
types of ornaments per band. A detailed study of the Berlin example,
which is the only fully preserved one, showed that the symbols probably
represent a lunisolar calendar. The object would have permitted the determination of dates or periods in both lunar and solar calendars.
The origins of Western astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia, the "land between the rivers" Tigris and Euphrates, where the ancient kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia were located. A form of writing known as cuneiform
emerged among the Sumerians around 3500–3000 BC. Our knowledge of
Sumerian astronomy is indirect, via the earliest Babylonian star
catalogues dating from about 1200 BC. The fact that many star names
appear in Sumerian suggests a continuity reaching into the Early Bronze
Age. Astral theology, which gave planetary gods an important role in Mesopotamian mythology and religion, began with the Sumerians. They also used a sexagesimal
(base 60) place-value number system, which simplified the task of
recording very large and very small numbers. The modern practice of
dividing a circle into 360 degrees, or an hour into 60 minutes, began with the Sumerians. For more information, see the articles on Babylonian numerals and mathematics.
Classical sources frequently use the term Chaldeans for the astronomers of Mesopotamia, who were, in reality, priest-scribes specializing in astrology and other forms of divination.
The first evidence of recognition that astronomical phenomena are
periodic and of the application of mathematics to their prediction is
Babylonian. Tablets dating back to the Old Babylonian period
document the application of mathematics to the variation in the length
of daylight over a solar year. Centuries of Babylonian observations of
celestial phenomena are recorded in the series of cuneiform tablets known as the Enūma Anu Enlil. The oldest significant astronomical text that we possess is Tablet 63 of the Enūma Anu Enlil, the Venus tablet of Ammi-saduqa,
which lists the first and last visible risings of Venus over a period
of about 21 years and is the earliest evidence that the phenomena of a
planet were recognized as periodic. The MUL.APIN, contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting heliacal risings and the settings of the planets, lengths of daylight measured by a water clock, gnomon, shadows, and intercalations.
The Babylonian GU text arranges stars in 'strings' that lie along
declination circles and thus measure right-ascensions or time-intervals,
and also employs the stars of the zenith, which are also separated by
given right-ascensional differences.
A significant increase in the quality and frequency of Babylonian observations appeared during the reign of Nabonassar (747–733 BC). The systematic records of ominous phenomena in Babylonian astronomical diaries that began at this time allowed for the discovery of a repeating 18-year cycle of lunar eclipses, for example. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy
later used Nabonassar's reign to fix the beginning of an era, since he
felt that the earliest usable observations began at this time.
The last stages in the development of Babylonian astronomy took place during the time of the Seleucid Empire
(323–60 BC). In the 3rd century BC, astronomers began to use "goal-year
texts" to predict the motions of the planets. These texts compiled
records of past observations to find repeating occurrences of ominous
phenomena for each planet. About the same time, or shortly afterwards,
astronomers created mathematical models that allowed them to predict
these phenomena directly, without consulting past records. A notable
Babylonian astronomer from this time was Seleucus of Seleucia, who was a supporter of the heliocentric model.
Astronomy in the Indian subcontinent dates back to the period of Indus Valley Civilization during 3rd millennium BCE, when it was used to create calendars. As the Indus Valley civilization did not leave behind written documents, the oldest extant Indian astronomical text is the Vedanga Jyotisha, dating from the Vedic period.
Vedanga Jyotisha describes rules for tracking the motions of the Sun
and the Moon for the purposes of ritual. During the 6th century,
astronomy was influenced by the Greek and Byzantine astronomical
traditions.
Aryabhata (476–550), in his magnum opus Aryabhatiya (499), propounded a computational system based on a planetary model in which the Earth was taken to be spinning on its axis
and the periods of the planets were given with respect to the Sun. He
accurately calculated many astronomical constants, such as the periods
of the planets, times of the solar and lunareclipses, and the instantaneous motion of the Moon. Early followers of Aryabhata's model included Varahamihira, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II.
Astronomy was advanced during the Shunga Empire and many star catalogues were produced during this time. The Shunga period is known as the "Golden age of astronomy in India".
It saw the development of calculations for the motions and places of various planets, their rising and setting, conjunctions, and the calculation of eclipses.
Indian astronomers by the 6th century believed that comets were
celestial bodies that re-appeared periodically. This was the view
expressed in the 6th century by the astronomers Varahamihira and Bhadrabahu, and the 10th-century astronomer Bhattotpala
listed the names and estimated periods of certain comets, but it is
unfortunately not known how these figures were calculated or how
accurate they were.
Bhāskara II
(1114–1185) was the head of the astronomical observatory at Ujjain,
continuing the mathematical tradition of Brahmagupta. He wrote the Siddhantasiromani which consists of two parts: Goladhyaya (sphere) and Grahaganita
(mathematics of the planets). He also calculated the time taken for the
Earth to orbit the sun to 9 decimal places. The Buddhist University of Nalanda at the time offered formal courses in astronomical studies.
Other important astronomers from India include Madhava of Sangamagrama, Nilakantha Somayaji and Jyeshtadeva, who were members of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics from the 14th century to the 16th century. Nilakantha Somayaji, in his Aryabhatiyabhasya, a commentary on Aryabhata's Aryabhatiya, developed his own computational system for a partially heliocentric planetary model, in which Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn orbit the Sun, which in turn orbits the Earth, similar to the Tychonic system later proposed by Tycho Brahe
in the late 16th century. Nilakantha's system, however, was
mathematically more efficient than the Tychonic system, due to correctly
taking into account the equation of the centre and latitudinal motion of Mercury and Venus. Most astronomers of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics who followed him accepted his planetary model.
The Ancient Greeks
developed astronomy, which they treated as a branch of mathematics, to a
highly sophisticated level. The first geometrical, three-dimensional
models to explain the apparent motion of the planets were developed in
the 4th century BC by Eudoxus of Cnidus and Callippus of Cyzicus. Their models were based on nested homocentric spheres centered upon the Earth. Their younger contemporary Heraclides Ponticus proposed that the Earth rotates around its axis.
A different approach to celestial phenomena was taken by natural philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle.
They were less concerned with developing mathematical predictive models
than with developing an explanation of the reasons for the motions of
the Cosmos. In his Timaeus, Plato described the universe as a
spherical body divided into circles carrying the planets and governed
according to harmonic intervals by a world soul. Aristotle, drawing on the mathematical model of Eudoxus, proposed that the universe was made of a complex system of concentric spheres, whose circular motions combined to carry the planets around the earth. This basic cosmological model prevailed, in various forms, until the 16th century.
In the 3rd century BC Aristarchus of Samos was the first to suggest a heliocentric system, although only fragmentary descriptions of his idea survive. Eratosthenes, using the angles of shadows created at widely separated regions, estimated the circumference of the Earth with great accuracy.
Greek geometrical astronomy developed away from the model of concentric spheres to employ more complex models in which an eccentric circle would carry around a smaller circle, called an epicycle which in turn carried around a planet. The first such model is attributed to Apollonius of Perga and further developments in it were carried out in the 2nd century BC by Hipparchus of Nicea. Hipparchus made a number of other contributions, including the first measurement of precession and the compilation of the first star catalog in which he proposed our modern system of apparent magnitudes.
The Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek
astronomical observational device for calculating the movements of the
Sun and the Moon, possibly the planets, dates from about 150–100 BC, and
was the first ancestor of an astronomical computer. It was discovered in an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete. The device became famous for its use of a differential gear,
previously believed to have been invented in the 16th century, and the
miniaturization and complexity of its parts, comparable to a clock made
in the 18th century. The original mechanism is displayed in the Bronze
collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, accompanied by a replica.
Depending on the historian's viewpoint, the acme or corruption of physical Greek astronomy is seen with Ptolemy of Alexandria, who wrote the classic comprehensive presentation of geocentric astronomy, the Megale Syntaxis (Great Synthesis), better known by its Arabic title Almagest, which had a lasting effect on astronomy up to the Renaissance. In his Planetary Hypotheses,
Ptolemy ventured into the realm of cosmology, developing a physical
model of his geometric system, in a universe many times smaller than the
more realistic conception of Aristarchus of Samos four centuries earlier.
The precise orientation of the Egyptian pyramids
affords a lasting demonstration of the high degree of technical skill
in watching the heavens attained in the 3rd millennium BC. It has been
shown the Pyramids were aligned towards the pole star, which, because of the precession of the equinoxes, was at that time Thuban, a faint star in the constellation of Draco. Evaluation of the site of the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak, taking into account the change over time of the obliquity of the ecliptic, has shown that the Great Temple was aligned on the rising of the midwinter sun. The length of the corridor down which sunlight would travel would have limited illumination at other times of the year.
Astronomy played a considerable part in religious matters for fixing the dates of festivals and determining the hours of the night. The titles of several temple books are preserved recording the movements and phases of the sun, moon and stars. The rising of Sirius (Egyptian: Sopdet, Greek: Sothis) at the beginning of the inundation was a particularly important point to fix in the yearly calendar.
Writing in the Roman era, Clement of Alexandria gives some idea of the importance of astronomical observations to the sacred rites:
And after the Singer advances the Astrologer (ὡροσκόπος), with a horologium (ὡρολόγιον) in his hand, and a palm (φοίνιξ), the symbols of astrology. He must know by heart the Hermetic
astrological books, which are four in number. Of these, one is about
the arrangement of the fixed stars that are visible; one on the
positions of the sun and moon and five planets; one on the conjunctions
and phases of the sun and moon; and one concerns their risings.
The Astrologer's instruments (horologium and palm) are a plumb line and sighting instrument. They have been identified with two inscribed objects in the Berlin Museum;
a short handle from which a plumb line was hung, and a palm branch with
a sight-slit in the broader end. The latter was held close to the eye,
the former in the other hand, perhaps at arms length. The "Hermetic"
books which Clement refers to are the Egyptian theological texts, which
probably have nothing to do with HellenisticHermetism.
From the tables of stars on the ceiling of the tombs of Rameses VI and Rameses IX
it seems that for fixing the hours of the night a man seated on the
ground faced the Astrologer in such a position that the line of
observation of the pole star passed over the middle of his head. On the different days of the year each hour was determined by a fixed star culminating
or nearly culminating in it, and the position of these stars at the
time is given in the tables as in the centre, on the left eye, on the
right shoulder, etc. According to the texts, in founding or rebuilding
temples the north
axis was determined by the same apparatus, and we may conclude that it
was the usual one for astronomical observations. In careful hands it
might give results of a high degree of accuracy.
China
Printed star map of Su Song (1020–1101) showing the south polar projection.
Astronomy in China has a long history. Detailed records of
astronomical observations were kept from about the 6th century BC, until
the introduction of Western astronomy and the telescope in the 17th
century. Chinese astronomers were able to precisely predict eclipses.
Much of early Chinese astronomy was for the purpose of
timekeeping. The Chinese used a lunisolar calendar, but because the
cycles of the Sun and the Moon are different, astronomers often prepared
new calendars and made observations for that purpose.
Astrological divination was also an important part of astronomy.
Astronomers took careful note of "guest stars" which suddenly appeared
among the fixed stars.
They were the first to record a supernova, in the Astrological Annals
of the Houhanshu in 185 AD. Also, the supernova that created the Crab Nebula
in 1054 is an example of a "guest star" observed by Chinese
astronomers, although it was not recorded by their European
contemporaries. Ancient astronomical records of phenomena like
supernovae and comets are sometimes used in modern astronomical studies.
Maya astronomical codices include detailed tables for calculating phases of the Moon, the recurrence of eclipses, and the appearance and disappearance of Venus as morning and evening star. The Maya based their calendrics in the carefully calculated cycles of the Pleiades, the Sun, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and also they had a precise description of the eclipses as depicted in the Dresden Codex, as well as the ecliptic or zodiac, and the Milky Way was crucial in their Cosmology. A number of important Maya structures are believed to have been
oriented toward the extreme risings and settings of Venus. To the
ancient Maya, Venus was the patron of war and many recorded battles are
believed to have been timed to the motions of this planet. Mars is also mentioned in preserved astronomical codices and early mythology.
Although the Maya calendar was not tied to the Sun, John Teeple has proposed that the Maya calculated the solar year to somewhat greater accuracy than the Gregorian calendar. Both astronomy and an intricate numerological scheme for the measurement of time were vitally important components of Maya religion.
The Arabic and the Persian world under Islam had become highly cultured, and many important works of knowledge from Greek astronomy and Indian astronomy
and Persian astronomy were translated into Arabic, used and stored in
libraries throughout the area. An important contribution by Islamic
astronomers was their emphasis on observational astronomy. This led to the emergence of the first astronomical observatories in the Muslim world by the early 9th century. Zij star catalogues were produced at these observatories.
In the 10th century, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) carried out observations on the stars and described their positions, magnitudes, brightness, and colour and drawings for each constellation in his Book of Fixed Stars. He also gave the first descriptions and pictures of "A Little Cloud" now known as the Andromeda Galaxy. He mentions it as lying before the mouth of a Big Fish, an Arabic constellation. This "cloud" was apparently commonly known to the Isfahan astronomers, very probably before 905 AD. The first recorded mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was also given by al-Sufi. In 1006, Ali ibn Ridwan observed SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, and left a detailed description of the temporary star.
In the late 10th century, a huge observatory was built near Tehran, Iran, by the astronomer Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi who observed a series of meridiantransits
of the Sun, which allowed him to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis
relative to the Sun. He noted that measurements by earlier (Indian,
then Greek) astronomers had found higher values for this angle, possible
evidence that the axial tilt is not constant but was in fact
decreasing. In 11th-century Persia, Omar Khayyám compiled many tables and performed a reformation of the calendar that was more accurate than the Julian and came close to the Gregorian.
Other Muslim advances in astronomy included the collection and
correction of previous astronomical data, resolving significant problems
in the Ptolemaic model, the development of the universal latitude-independent astrolabe by Arzachel, the invention of numerous other astronomical instruments, Ja'far Muhammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir's belief that the heavenly bodies and celestial spheres were subject to the same physical laws as Earth, the first elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena, the introduction of exacting empirical observations and experimental techniques, and the introduction of empirical testing by Ibn al-Shatir, who produced the first model of lunar motion which matched physical observations.
Natural philosophy (particularly Aristotelian physics) was separated from astronomy by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in the 11th century, by Ibn al-Shatir in the 14th century, and Qushji in the 15th century, leading to the development of an astronomical physics.
Medieval Western Europe
9th-century diagram of the positions of the seven planets on 18 March 816.
After the significant contributions of Greek scholars to the
development of astronomy, it entered a relatively static era in Western
Europe from the Roman era through the 12th century. This lack of
progress has led some astronomers to assert that nothing happened in
Western European astronomy during the Middle Ages.
Recent investigations, however, have revealed a more complex picture
of the study and teaching of astronomy in the period from the 4th to the
16th centuries.
Western Europe
entered the Middle Ages with great difficulties that affected the
continent's intellectual production. The advanced astronomical treatises
of classical antiquity were written in Greek,
and with the decline of knowledge of that language, only simplified
summaries and practical texts were available for study. The most
influential writers to pass on this ancient tradition in Latin were Macrobius, Pliny, Martianus Capella, and Calcidius. In the 6th century Bishop Gregory of Tours
noted that he had learned his astronomy from reading Martianus Capella,
and went on to employ this rudimentary astronomy to describe a method
by which monks could determine the time of prayer at night by watching
the stars.
In the 7th century the English monk Bede of Jarrow published an influential text, On the Reckoning of Time, providing churchmen with the practical astronomical knowledge needed to compute the proper date of Easter using a procedure called the computus. This text remained an important element of the education of clergy from the 7th century until well after the rise of the Universities in the 12th century.
The range of surviving ancient Roman writings on astronomy and
the teachings of Bede and his followers began to be studied in earnest
during the revival of learning sponsored by the emperor Charlemagne.
By the 9th century rudimentary techniques for calculating the position
of the planets were circulating in Western Europe; medieval scholars
recognized their flaws, but texts describing these techniques continued
to be copied, reflecting an interest in the motions of the planets and
in their astrological significance.
Building on this astronomical background, in the 10th century European scholars such as Gerbert of Aurillac
began to travel to Spain and Sicily to seek out learning which they had
heard existed in the Arabic-speaking world. There they first
encountered various practical astronomical techniques concerning the
calendar and timekeeping, most notably those dealing with the astrolabe. Soon scholars such as Hermann of Reichenau were writing texts in Latin on the uses and construction of the astrolabe and others, such as Walcher of Malvern, were using the astrolabe to observe the time of eclipses in order to test the validity of computistical tables.
By the 12th century, scholars were traveling to Spain and Sicily
to seek out more advanced astronomical and astrological texts, which
they translated into Latin
from Arabic and Greek to further enrich the astronomical knowledge of
Western Europe. The arrival of these new texts coincided with the rise
of the universities in medieval Europe, in which they soon found a home. Reflecting the introduction of astronomy into the universities, John of Sacrobosco wrote a series of influential introductory astronomy textbooks: the Sphere, a Computus, a text on the Quadrant, and another on Calculation.
In the 14th century, Nicole Oresme,
later bishop of Liseux, showed that neither the scriptural texts nor
the physical arguments advanced against the movement of the Earth were
demonstrative and adduced the argument of simplicity for the theory that
the earth moves, and not the heavens. However, he concluded
"everyone maintains, and I think myself, that the heavens do move and
not the earth: For God hath established the world which shall not be
moved." In the 15th century, cardinal Nicholas of Cusa
suggested in some of his scientific writings that the Earth revolved
around the Sun, and that each star is itself a distant sun. He was not,
however, describing a scientifically verifiable theory of the universe.
Copernican Revolution
During the renaissance period, astronomy began to undergo a revolution in thought known as the Copernican revolution, which gets the name from the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who proposed a heliocentric system, in which the planets revolved around the Sun and not the Earth. His De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium was published in 1543. While in the long term this was a very controversial claim, in the very beginning it only brought minor controversy. The theory became the dominant view because many figures, most notably Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton championed and improved upon the work. Other figures also aided this new model despite not believing the overall theory, like Tycho Brahe, with his well-known observations.
Brahe, a Danish noble, was an essential astronomer in this period. He came on the astronomical scene with the publication of De Nova Stella in which he disproved conventional wisdom on SN 1572. He also created the Tychonic System in which he blended the mathematical benefits of the Copernican system and the “physical benefits” of the Ptolemaic system.
This was one of the systems people believed in when they did not accept
heliocentrism, but could no longer accept the Ptolemaic system.
He is most known for his highly accurate observations of the stars and
the solar system. Later he moved to Prague and continued his work. In
Prague he was at work on the Rudolphine Tables, that were not finished until after his death. The Rudolphine Tables was a star map designed to be more accurate than either the Alphonsine Tables, made in the 1300s and the Prutenic Tables which were inaccurate.
He was assisted at this time by his assistant Johannes Kepler, who
would later use his observations to finish Brahe’s works and for his
theories as well.
After the death of Brahe, Kepler was deemed his successor and was
given the job of complete Brahe’s uncompleted works, like the
Rudolphine Tables. He completed the Rudolphine Tables in 1624, although it was not published for several years.
Like many other figures of this era, he was subject to religious and
political troubles, like the thirty-year war, which led to chaos that
almost destroyed some of his works. Kepler was, however, the first to
attempt to derive mathematical predictions of celestial motions from
assumed physical causes. Kepler discovered the three laws of planetary
motion that now carry his name. Those laws being as follows:
The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.
A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.
The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.
With these laws, he managed to improve upon the existing Heliocentric
model. The first two were published in 1609. Kepler's contributions
improved upon the overall system, giving it more credibility because it
adequately explained events and could cause more reliable predictions.
Before this the Copernican model was just as unreliable as the ptolemaic
model. This improvement came because Kepler realized the orbits were
not perfect circles, but ellipses.
Galileo Galilei
(1564–1642) crafted his own telescope and discovered that our Moon had
craters, that Jupiter had moons, that the Sun had spots, and that Venus
had phases like our Moon.
Galileo Galilei was among the first to use a telescope to observe the sky, and after constructing a 20x refractor telescope. He discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1610, which are now collectively known as the Galilean moons, in his honor. This discovery was the first known observation of satellites orbiting another planet.
He also found that our Moon had craters and observed, and correctly
explained, sunspots, and that Venus exhibited a full set of phases
resembling lunar phases.
Galileo argued that these facts demonstrated incompatibility with the
Ptolemaic model, which could not explain the phenomenon and would even
contradict it.
With the moons it demonstrated that the earth does not have to have
everything orbiting it and that other parts of the solar system could
orbit another object, such as the earth orbiting the sun. In ptolemaic system the celestial bodies were supposed to be perfect so such objects should not have craters or sunspots.
The phases of venus could only happen in the event that venus orbit is
insides earth's orbit which could not happen if the earth was the
center. He, as the most famous example, had to faced challenges from
church officials, more specifically the Roman Inquisition.
They accused him of heresy because these beliefs went against the
teachings of the Bible and was challenging the Catholic church's
authority when it was at its weakest. While he was able to avoid punishment for a little while he was eventually tried and pled guilty to heresy in 1633. Although this came at some expense—his book was banned—and he was put under house arrest until he died in 1642.
Plate with figures illustrating articles on astronomy, from the 1728 Cyclopaedia
Isaac Newton developed further ties between physics and astronomy through his law of universal gravitation.
Realizing that the same force that attracts objects to the surface of
the Earth held the moon in orbit around the Earth, Newton was able to
explain—in one theoretical framework—all known gravitational phenomena.
In his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he derived Kepler's laws from first principles. Those first principles are as follows:
In an inertial reference frame, the vector sum of the forces F on an object is equal to the mass m of that object multiplied by the acceleration a of the object: F = ma. (It is assumed here that the mass m is constant)
When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body
simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in
direction on the first body.
Thus while Kepler explained how the planets moved, Newton accurately
managed to explain why the planets moved the way they do. Newton's
theoretical developments laid many of the foundations of modern physics.
Completing the solar system
Outside of England, Newton's theory took some time to become established. Descartes' theory of vortices held sway in France, and Huygens, Leibniz and Cassini accepted only parts of Newton's system, preferring their own philosophies. Voltaire published a popular account in 1738. In 1748, the French Academy of Sciences offered a reward for solving the perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn which was eventually solved by Euler and Lagrange. Laplace completed the theory of the planets, publishing from 1798 to 1825.
In the 19th century it was discovered that (by Joseph von Fraunhofer), when sunlight was dispersed, a multitude of spectral lines
were observed (regions where there was less or no light). Experiments
with hot gases showed that the same lines could be observed in the
spectra of gases, specific lines corresponding to unique elements. It
was proved that the chemical elements found in the Sun (chiefly hydrogen and helium) were also found on Earth.
During the 20th century spectroscopy (the study of these lines) advanced, especially because of the advent of quantum physics, that was necessary to understand the observations.
Although in previous centuries noted astronomers were exclusively
male, at the turn of the 20th century women began to play a role in the
great discoveries. In this period prior to modern computers, women at
the United States Naval Observatory (USNO), Harvard University,
and other astronomy research institutions began to be hired as human
"computers," who performed the tedious calculations while scientists
performed research requiring more background knowledge.
A number of discoveries in this period were originally noted by the
women "computers" and reported to their supervisors. For example, at the
Harvard Observatory Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered the cepheid variable star period-luminosity relation which she further developed into a method of measuring distance outside of our solar system. Annie Jump Cannon, also at Harvard, organized the stellar spectral types according to stellar temperature. In 1847, Maria Mitchell
discovered a comet using a telescope. According to Lewis D. Eigen,
Cannon alone, "in only 4 years discovered and catalogued more stars than
all the men in history put together."
Most of these women received little or no recognition during their lives
due to their lower professional standing in the field of astronomy. Although their discoveries and methods are taught in classrooms around
the world, few students of astronomy can attribute the works to their
authors or have any idea that there were active female astronomers at
the end of the 19th century.
Cosmology and the expansion of the universe
Comparison of CMB (Cosmic microwave background) results from satellites COBE, WMAP and Planck documenting a progress in 1989-2013.
Most of our current knowledge was gained during the 20th century. With the help of the use of photography, fainter objects were observed. Our sun was found to be part of a galaxy made up of more than 1010 stars (10 billion stars). The existence of other galaxies, one of the matters of the great debate, was settled by Edwin Hubble, who identified the Andromeda nebula as a different galaxy, and many others at large distances and receding, moving away from our galaxy.
