Where, one wonders, did Atri Bhauma observe and record that famous total solar eclipse of the Rig Veda? Where exactly did Yajnavalkya of the Shatapatha Brahmana conjure the intercalary 95 year cycle to align the lunar and solar years? Where was he struck by thoughts, some dare say, so close to heliocentrism? Somewhere in Mithila perhaps. Where did Dirghatamas Auchatya conceive of the celestial circle of 360- which would later become the 360 degrees of mathematics? Both appear in his cryptic Rig Vedic hymns and in clearer, more developed forms in later texts such as the Shatapatha Brahmana and the Vedanga Jyotisha. We may never know.Where, one wonders, did Atri Bhauma observe and record that famous total solar eclipse of the Rig Veda? Where exactly did Yajnavalkya of the Shatapatha Brahmana conjure the intercalary 95 year cycle to align the lunar and solar years? Where was he struck by thoughts, some dare say, so close to heliocentrism? Somewhere in Mithila perhaps. Where did Dirghatamas Auchatya conceive of the celestial circle of 360- which would later become the 360 degrees of mathematics? Both appear in his cryptic Rig Vedic hymns and in clearer, more developed forms in later texts such as the Shatapatha Brahmana and the Vedanga Jyotisha.
We may never know.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fehFdW5n2Kk
Muslim mathematicians were great force before Copernicus & Gallileo, so may have influenced them completely:
I was wondering when Islam moved to the heliocentric view- apparently they always had it since AD 750 or so!
When they calculate the position of Mecca :
Which Direction Is Mecca - IslamiCity
"Muslim prayers have a geographic angle not found in other religious traditions. The holiest site in Islam is the Kaaba, a mosque in Mecca, and observant Muslims perform their daily prayers literally facing that spot. But figuring out which way to pray isn’t quite as simple as it seems-especially in the very odd case of Tematangi, a remote atoll in French Polynesia.
In the Quran, the direction that Muslims are instructed to face when they pray is called the qibla, which means “direction” in Arabic. The need to calculate the qibla correctly was one factor that led to the development of sophisticated math and geography in the Arab world during the so-called “Islamic Golden Age,” between the 8th and 13th centuries.
On a flat Earth, calculating the qibla would be easy: You would use a “rhumb line,” a line of standard bearing that crossed all meridians of longitude at the same angle. If you were praying in Anchorage, Alaska, for example, you’d face Mecca by facing roughly west-southwest. But here’s the problem: The Earth is round. Most scholars of Islam, from the Middle Ages up to today, have recommended that believers pray using a so-called “great circle” to find the path of least distance to Mecca. By this math, a Muslim in Anchorage would actually face almost due north to pray! (Check a globe if you don’t believe me on this.)"
16th and 17th C Iranian maps:
Two Iranian World Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance to Mecca on JSTOR
It's mostly new to me ... appreciate some of our community with their vast expertise may like to share here
Dan Gibson (author) - Wikipedia
"In 2017, historian
David A. King authored a highly critical review of Gibson's
Early Islamic Qiblas[1] in which he cites plagiarism, misconstruction and misunderstanding of his 1990 work on Qibla direction.
[2] King also published a systematic review in 2018 entitled
"The Petra fallacy - Early mosques do face the Sacred Kaaba in Mecca but Dan Gibson doesn't know how / Comparing historical orientations with modern directions can lead to false results".
[3]
King argued that early Muslim Arabs were unable to precisely establish Qiblas when building new mosques until later mathematical developments made precision possible.
[4] Further, King wrote, many variations in orientation are better accounted for by regional and local practices, imperfect geography, and folk astronomy. King noted Gibson's inadequate grasp of mathematics, citing Gibson's "
spherical polygons" (p. 170) as inexplicable. King summarized his analysis of Gibson's work as an "amateurish, non-scholarly document that is both offensive to Muslims and also an insult to Muslim and Western scholarship."
[4] Gibson placed a response to King on academia.edu, "Dr. King on the other hand is convinced that the sloppy qiblas actually intended to point: east, west, solstices, sunrises and so forth. I have not come across anything in Islamic religious manuscripts that support these Qiblas. But perhaps in time someone, somewhere will stumble across something that will change our understanding of Qiblas. All I have found so far, is that every Muslim expects the Qibla to point to Masjid Al Harām."
[5]"
David A. King (historian) - Wikipedia
"The first volume of his
magnum opus entitled
In Synchrony with the Heavens (2004) contains the first descriptions of the astronomical tables used by Muslim astronomers for timekeeping by the sun and stars and the regulation of the astronomically-defined times of Muslim prayer throughout the year for different localities. The sophistication of some of these tables and instruments is remarkable, especially those that are universal, in the sense of serving all latitudes. Also remarkable is the way in which Muslim astronomers tabulated all conceivable functions relevant to the problems of spherical astronomy.
The vast majority of these tables were unknown in medieval Europe, which is why they have only come to light in modern times." (NW emphasis)
) at least 2,000 years ago and has had a considerable negative and positive impact on Chinese topography. The history of geographical philosophy is a recent academic topic in China. This change first started in the 1980's and "The center of geographical history" has emerged (Yang 1989, p. 7; Wang 1982, p. 4).
