Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy

Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy

The secrets of the Fifth Canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam have long confused scholars of Vedic cosmography and astronomy. Confronted with a description of the universe that seems much at variance with the information provided by our senses and standard astronomical calculations, foreign observers—and even Indian commentators—from the Middle Ages up to the present have concluded that the Bhagavatam's account, elaborated in other Puranas, must be mythological. On the other hand, the same folks have been immensely impressed by Vedic astronomical treatises, the Jyotisa Sastras, which offer extremely precise measurements of the solar system. In Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy, Dr. Thompson shows that the Fifth Canto's cosmography and the accounts of the solar system found in the Jyotisa Sastras are not contradictory, but that they in fact represent distinct yet mutually consistent ways of comprehending a universe with important features beyond the range of ordinary sense perception.

Author

Richard L. Thompson