Miscellaneous Topics on Indian History

[dhu]

hindunet:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Vedic Astronomy of David Pingree

Below is an amusing note on the 'methodology' of David Pingree, whose pronouncements are quoted with approval by numerous Eurocentric Indologists. Bibliographic reference is at the end. The post is an example of how every achievement of ancient India is attributed to an 'external' source or stimulus.
*********
QUOTE

“One rather disturbing aspect of Pingree’s method must be pointed out. He first introduces a notion very tentatively as a suggestion. He repeats the same in a number of articles, each time asserting a little more and exaggerating a little more, without a shred of further evidence. Finally, his statement looks like it is based in well established facts. For example, (a) about the concept of tithi: he says in his 1963 article, “it seems likely that the Indians borrowed the concept from Mesopotamia, though the exact origin of tithi still remains obscure.” He repeats in several articles that the Indians borrowed the concept of tithi. Finally, what was “a concept whose origin still remains obscure” in 1963, becomes in his 1978 article, “tithi, a Mesopotamian concept”; (b) about the age of Vedanga Jyotish: in his 1963 article, it was “probably composed in the fifth century BC”; in the 1973 article it had changed o “probably between the fifth and fourth century BC”, but in the 1978 article it is declared as “fourth century B.C.”; © finally, the Pingree hypothesis that is being refuted in the present paper: it was introduced as a hypothesis in 1963, as just a “plausible guess”; this hypothesis had changed to the status of a theory in 1973, by what he calls “hypothetical reconstruction”, with the assertion that “some elements of
early Indian astronomy being derived from Mesopotamia”. The assertion had changed from mere “some elements of early Indian astronomy” to the “whole system of Lagadha being not indigenous to India” in his 1978 article. What was just a ‘plausible guess’ arrived at by ‘hypothetical reconstruction’ has, now-a-days, he declares in every article, “since most fundamental concepts of astronomy in India can be traced to Mesopotamia….”

UNQUOTE

Reference:
Note 16 on p. 108 of ACHAR, B. N. Narahari; ‘On the Vedic Origin of Ancient
Mathematical Astronomy of India’; Journal of Studies on Ancient India, vol.
2, nos. 2-4 (1998), 95 - 108 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->