by BS Murthy
10. On the meeting and conjunction of the planets.
11. On the latitudes of the planets.
12. A critical investigation for the purpose of distinguishing between correct and corrupt passages in the texts of astronomical treatises and handbooks.
13. On arithmetic: on plane measure and cognate subjects.
14. Scientific calculation of the mean places of the planets.
15. Scientific calculation of the correction of the places of the planets.
16. Scientific calculation of the three problems.
17. On the deflection of eclipses.
18. Scientific calculation of the appearance of the new moon and her two cusps.
19. On Kuttaka, i.e. the pounding of a thing. The pounding of oil producing substances is here compared with the most minute and detailed research. This chapter treats of algebra and related subjects, and besides it contains other valuable remarks of a more or less arithmetical nature.
20. On the shadow.
21. On the calculation of the measures of poetry and on metrics.
22. On cycles and instruments of observation.
23. On time and the four measures of time, the solar, the civil, the lunar and the sidereal.
24. About numeral notation in the metrical books of this kind.
These, now, are twenty-four chapters, according to his (Brahmaputra's) own statement, but there is a twenty-fifth one, called Dhyana-graha-adhyaya, in which he tries to solve the problems by speculation, not by mathematical calculation..Such books as do not reach the standard of a Siddhanta are mostly called Tantra or Karana. The former means ruling under a governor, the latter means following, i.e. following behind the Siddhanta. Under governors they understand the Acaryas, i.e. the sages, anchorites,
the followers of Brahman. There are two famous Tantras by Aryabhata and Balabhadra, besides the Rasayana-tantra by Bhanuyasas."
As Alberuni had observed, as under, the Hindu intellectual descent was evident by the turn of the first millennium of the Common Era.
"The religious books of the Hindus and their codes of tradition, the Puranas, contain sentences about the shape of the world which stand in direct opposition to scientific truth as known to their astronomers. By these books people are guided in fulfilling the rites of their religion, and by means of them the great mass of the nation have been wheedled into a predilection for astronomical calculations and astrological predictions and warnings.
The consequence is, that they show much affection to their astronomers, declaring that they are excellent men, that it is a good omen to meet them, and firmly believing that all of them come into paradise and none into hell. For this the astronomers requite them by accepting their popular notions as truth, by conforming themselves to them, however far from truth most of them may be, and by presenting them with such spiritual stuff as they stand in need of.
This is the reason why the two theories, the vulgar and the scientific, have become intermingled in the course of time, why the doctrines of the astronomers have been disturbed and confused, in particular the doctrines of those authors - and they are the majority- who simply copy their predecessors, who take the bases of their science from tradition and do not make them the objects of independent scientific research."
What of the Hindu astrology? The fascination Cheiro felt for the Hindu astrology could be seen from his foreword to 'Cheiro's Book of Numbers'.
"During my earlier years, when traveling in the East, it had been my good fortune to come in contact with a certain sect of Brahmins who had kept in their hands from almost prehistoric times, studies and practices of an occult nature which they regarded as sacredly as they did their own religious teachings.
Among other things, they permitted me to learn certain theories on the occult significance of numbers and their influence and relation to human life, which subsequent years and manifold experiences not only confirmed, but justified me in endeavoring to apply them in a practical sense so that others might also use this knowledge with, I hope, advantage to themselves and to those around them.
The ancient Hindu searchers after Nature's laws, it must be remembered, were in former years masters of all such studies, but in transmitting their knowledge to their descendants, they so endeavored to hide their secrets from the common people that in most cases the key to the problem became lost, and the truth that had been discovered became buried in the dust of superstition and charlatanism, to be re-formed, let us hope, when some similar cycle of thought in its own appointed time will again claim attention to this side of nature.
When examining such questions, we must not forget that it was the Hindus, who discovered what is known as the precession of the Equinoxes, and in their calculations such an occurrence takes place every 25,827 years; our modern science after labours of hundreds of years has simply proved them to be correct.
How, or by what means they were able to arrive at such a calculation, has never been discovered - observations lasting over such a period of time are hardly admissible, and calculation without instruments is also scarcely conceivable, and so science has only been able, first to accept their statement, and later to acknowledge its accuracy.
Their judgment, together with that of the Chaldeans, as to the length of what is now known as the cycle of years of the planets, has been handed down to us from the most remote ages, and also by our modern appliances has been proved correct, so when one comes to a study such as this, as to the value of the numbers 1 to 9, which, as the seven harmonies of music are the bases of all music that has ever been conceived, these above-stated numbers are the basis of all our numbers and calculations, it is then only logical to accept the decisions of those great students of long past ages and at least examine their deductions with a mind free from bias and prejudice."
Cheiro's admiration for the Hindu astrology made him say at one stage that the only reason why one should believe in it is because the Hindus invented it. What is more, the Brahman intellectual finesse that conceptualized 'zero' in the mathematical sphere, had accorded 'nil' value to all things mundane in the economic zone; and in this lay the seeds of the Hindu philosophy that shaped the Indian psyche of contentment, for good or bad, which is at odds with the materialistic order of the day.
If anything, the newfound materialistic opportunities that PV Narasimha Rao's liberalization of economy ensued had upset the social karmic balance of yore - one owes his position on the social ladder to the good (sukarma) or bad (kukarma) deeds of his previous life. However, in their materialistic chase for the goodies of life in the western tracks, Hindus have not cared to borrow the kit of western work culture, thereby undermining the Indian moral ethos.
It is thus, the antics of Bal Thackeray's Shiv Sainiks against the Westernization of the society represent the growing frustration of the traditionalists. However, maybe, once the charms of M ammon begin to wane in time, the core Hindu outlook of life, shaped by the soul of its philosophy, could be resurgent. Or, would it be a case of a people losing out, in spite of the karmic philosophy, so beneficially imbibed by their forbears for forbearance against the vicissitudes of life! Only time would tell.
Be that as it may, the seeds of the eventual Hindu social decay could be traced back to Cheiro's eulogy of the Brahman virtuosity in astrology.
Chapter 5 The Zero People
While the Brahman genius paved the way for the Aryan's intellectual superiority, the others of the land were denied access to education as a ploy to stall their challenge to them for all times to come. Nonetheless, the indigenous genius was allowed to find expression in arts and crafts earmarked to their castes; thus, by and large, their social re-engineering seems to have worked wonderfully well to justify M ax M ueller's eulogy.
The Brahmans who invented the zero, and the decimal as well, had however marginalized the sudras besides turning the outcasts into ciphers, only to eventually degenerate themselves as well. The caste system of the Aryan social expediency was in time given the Brahmanical religious sanction through inte
rpolations in the Gita itself through the one below, vl3 in chapter 4, Practical Wisdom, and such others.
By M e ordained born beings
In tune with their own natures
Environs in such govern their life
But tend I not them to their birth.
Alberuni describes the caste ridden Hindu society as he found it between 1017 and 1030 A.D thus:
"The Hindus call their castes varna, i.e. colours, and from a genealogical point of view they call them jataka, i.e. births. These castes are from the very beginning only four.
1. The highest caste are the Brahmana, of whom the books of the Hindus tell that they were created from the head of Brahman. And as Brahman is only another name for the force called nature, and the head is the highest part of the animal body, the Brahmana are the choice part of the whole genus. Therefore the Hindus consider them as the very best of mankind.
2. The next caste are the Kshatriya, who were created, as they say, from the shoulders and hands of Brahman. Their degree is not much below that of the Brahmana.
3. After them follow the Vaisya, who were created from the thigh of Brahman.
4. The Sudra, who were created from his feet.
Between the latter two classes there is no very great distance. Much, however, as these classes differ from each other, they live together in the same towns and villages, mixed together in the same houses and lodgings.
After the Sudra follow the people called Antyaja, who render various kinds of services, who are not reckoned amongst any caste, but only as members of a certain craft or profession. There are eight classes of them, who freely intermarry with each other, except the fuller, shoemaker, and weaver, for no others would condescend to have anything to do with them. These eight guilds are the fuller, shoemaker, juggler, the basket and shield maker, the sailor, fisherman, the hunter of wild animals and of birds, and the weaver. The four castes do not live together with them in one and the same place. These guilds live near the villages and towns of the four castes, but outside them.
The people called Hadi, Doma (Domba), Chandala and Badhatau (sic) are not reckoned amongst any caste or guild. They are occupied with dirty work, like the cleansing of the villages and other services. They are considered as one sole class, and distinguished only by their occupations. In fact, they are considered like illegitimate children; for according to general opinion they descend from a Sudra father and a Brahmani mother as the children of fornication; therefore they are degraded outcastes.
The Hindus give to every single man of the four castes characteristic names, according to their occupations and modes of life. E.G. the Brahmana is in general called by this name as long as he does his work staying at home. When he is busy with the service of one fire, he is called ishtin; if he serves three fires, he is called agnihotrin; if he besides offers an offering to the fire, he is called dikshita. And as it is with the Brahmana, so is it also with the other castes.
Of the classes beneath the castes, the Hadi are the best spoken of, because they keep themselves free from everything unclean. Next follows the Doma, who play on the lute and sing. The still lower classes practice as a trade killing and the inflicting of judicial punishments. The worst of all are the Badhatau, who not only devour the flesh of dead animals, but even of dogs and other beasts.
Each of the four castes, when eating together, must form a group for themselves, one group not being allowed to comprise two men of different castes. If, further, in the group of the Brahmana there are two men who live at enmity with each other, and the seat of the one is by the side of the other, they make a barrier between the two seats by placing a board between them, or by spreading a piece of dress, or in some other way; and if there is only a line drawn between them, they are considered as separated. Since it is forbidden to eat the remains of a meal, every single man must have his own food for himself; for if any one of the party who are eating should take of the food from one and the same plate, that which remains in the plate becomes, after the first eater has taken part, to him who wants to take as the second, the remains of the meal, and such is forbidden."
The social duties of non-Brahmans as pictured by Alberuni are
"The Kshatriya reads the Veda and learns it, but does not teach it. He offers to the fire and acts according to the rules of the Puranas. In places where, as we have mentioned, a tablecloth is prepared for eating, he makes it angular. He rules the people and defends them, for he is created for this task. He girds himself with a single cord of the threefold yagnopavita, and a single other cord of cotton. This takes place after he has finished the twelfth year of his life.
It is the duty of Vaisya to practice agriculture and to cultivate the land, to tend the cattle and to remove the needs of the Brahmans. He is only allowed to gird himself with a single yajnopavita, which is made of two cords.
The Sudra is like a servant to the Brahman, taking care of his affairs and serving him. If, though being poor in the extreme, he still desires not to be without a yojnopavita, he girds himself only with linen one. Every action which is considered as the privilege of a Brahman, such as saying prayers, the recitation of the Veda, and offering sacrifices to the fire, is forbidden to him, to such a degree that when, e.g. a Sudra or a Vaisya is proved to have recited the Veda, he is accused by the Brahmans before the ruler, and the latter will order his tongue to be cut off. However, the meditation on God, work of piety, and alms giving are not forbidden to him.
Every man who takes to some occupation which is not allowed to his caste, e.g. a Brahman to trade, a Sudra to agriculture, commits a sin or crime, which they consider only a little less than the crime of theft.
All other men except the Candala, as far as they are not Hindus, are called mleccha, i.e. unclean, all those who kill men and slaughter animals and eat the flesh of cows."
The ironclad caste arrangement that might have initially helped the work culture of specialization, insensibly led to the economic ruin of the society in the long-run. Those who didn't have an aptitude to the craft that was earmarked to their caste, or had an inclination towards the art reserved for another, at the very best, must have been invariably half-hearted in their 'forced' pursuits; or, at the worst, they became parasites on the society at large. Understandably, their progeny who were supposed to learn the nuances of the craft or tricks of the trade from such should've lost their ropes for the lacking of their parents. Equally inimically, the watertight work culture could have prevented the flow of consultative corrections from one section of the society to the other, resulting in the stagnancy of skill that invariably led to the eventual decay of the craft itself.
In time thus, the social insult and the economic plight would have driven the numerically dominant fourth castes and the fifth outcasts into a state of despondency. And owing to the segregated nature of the society, the kshatriyas too might have lost the pulse of these very people they were supposed to govern. It was under such circumstances that Buddhism and Jainism made their appearance to threaten the hitherto unchallenged Brahmanism socially, and the sandtana dharma, sanctified by them, morally.
The account of the rise and fall of Buddhism, which initially challenged Brahman hegemony, only to lose out in the end, but, not before becoming the prevalent religion of Asia, is well recounted by Romila Thapar in 'A History of India' published by Penguin Books India.
"The Buddha (or the Enlightened One), as he was called, came from the republican tribe of the Shakyas, and his father was the kshatriya chief of this tribe. The legend of his life has curious similarities with the legendary episodes in Christ's life, such as the idea of the Immaculate Conception, and temptation by the Devil. He was born in about
566 B.C. and lived the life of a young prince but with increasing dissatisfaction, until he left his family and disappeared one night to become an ascetic.
After an austere six years he decided that asceticism was not the path to salvation and discarded it. He then resolved to discover the means of salvation through meditation, an
d eventually on the forty-ninth day of his meditation he received enlightenment and understood the cause of suffering in this world. He preached his first sermon at the Deer Park at Sarnath (four miles from Banaras) and gathered his first five disciples.
This sermon was called the Turning of the Wheel of Law, and was the nucleus of the Buddhist teaching. It incorporated the Four Noble Truths (that is, the world is full of suffering, suffering is caused by human desires, the Renunciation of desire is the path to salvation, and this salvation is possible through the Eight-Fold Path), and the Eight-Fold Path which consisted of eight principles of action, leading to a balanced, moderate life, (right views, resolves, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, recollection, and meditation, the combination of which wasdescribed as the M iddle Way).
To understand this sermon did not call for complicated metaphysical thinking, and the rational undertone of the argument was characteristic of the Buddhist emphasis on causality as the basis of analysis, particularly in a system where nothing is left to divine intervention. Salvation lay in achieving nirvana, or extinction, freedom from the wheel of rebirth. Thus the doctrine of karma was essential to the Buddhist system of salvation. Unlike the brahmanical idea, karma was not used to explain away caste status, since the Buddha rejected caste.
Buddhism was also atheistic, in as much as God was not essential to the Universe, there being a natural cosmic rise and decline. The universe had originally been a place of bliss but man's capitulation to desire has reduced it to place of suffering. Brahmanical ritual was almost entirely eliminated and was disapproved of in the early pure form of Buddhism: popular cults such as the worship of trees and funerary tumuli were accepted and Buddhists were thus able to associate themselves with popular worship."
Romila Thapar further notes the effects of Buddhism, and its cousin Jainism founded by M ahavira, on the Hindu social strata thus:
"There was much in common between Buddhism and Jainism. Both were started by members of the kshatriya caste and were opposed to brahmanical orthodoxy, denying the authority of the Vedas, and antagonistic to the practice of animal sacrifices, which had by now become a keystone of brahmanical power. Both appealed to the socially downtrodden, the vaishyas who were economically powerful, but were not granted corresponding social status, and the shudras who were obviously oppressed. Buddhism and Jainism, though they did not directly attack the caste system, were nevertheless opposed to it and can, to that extent, be described as non-caste movements. This provided an opportunity for those of low caste to opt out of their caste by joining a noncaste sect. The lack of expenses involved in worship, as contrasted with brahmanical worship, also attracted the same stratum in society."
