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Our understanding of archaeoastronomical sites in India is based not only on a rich archaeological record and texts that go back thousands of years, but
also on a living tradition that is connected to the past. Conversely, India has much cultural diversity and a tangled history of interactions with
neighboring regions that make the story complex. The texts reveal to us the cosmological ideas that lay behind astronomical sites in the historical period
and it is generally accepted that the same idea also apply to the Harappan era of the third millennium BCE (Kenoyer, 1998: 52-53).
In the historical period, astronomical observatories were part of temple complexes where the king was consecrated. Such consecration served to confirm the
king as foremost devotee of the chosen deity, who was taken to be the embodiment of time and the universe (Kak, 2002a: 58). For example, Udayagiri is an
astronomical site connected with the Classical age of the Gupta dynasty (320-500 CE), which is located a few kilometers from Vidisha in central India
(Willis, 2001; Dass and Willis, 2002). The imperial Guptas enlarged the site, an ancient hilly observatory going back at least to the 2nd
century BCE at which observations were facilitated by the geographical features of the hill, into a sacred landscape to draw royal authority.
Indian astronomy is characterized by the concept of ages of successive larger durations, which is an example of the pervasive idea of recursion, or
repetition of patterns across space, scale and time. An example of this is the division of the ecliptic into 27 star segments (nakṣatras), with which the moon is conjoined in its monthly circuit, each of which is further sub-divided into 27 sub-segments (upa-nakṣatras), and the successive divisions of the day into smaller measures of 30 units. The idea of recursion underlies the concept of the
sacred landscape and it is embodied in Indian art, providing an archaeoastronomical window on sacred and monumental architecture. It appears that this was
an old idea because intricate spiral patterns, indicating recursion, are also found in the paintings of the Mesolithic period. Tyagi (1992) has claimed
that they are unique to Indian rock art.
According to the Vāstu Śāstra, the structure of the building mirrors the emergence of cosmic order out of primordial chaos through the act of
measurement. The universe is symbolically mapped into a square that emphasizes the four cardinal directions. It is represented by the square vāstu-maṇḍala, which in its various forms is the basic plan for the house and the city. There exist further elaborations of this
plan, some of which are rectangular.
It is significant that yantric buildings in the form of mandalas have been discovered in North Afghanistan that belong to a period that
corresponds to the late stage of the Harappan tradition (Kak, 2000a; Kak, 2005b) providing architectural evidence in support of the idea of recursion at
this time. Although these building are a part of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), their affinity with ideas that are also present in the
Harappan system shows that these ideas were widely spread.
Chronology and Overview
India’s archaeological record in the northwest has unbroken continuity going back to about 7500 BCE at Mehrgarh (Kenoyer, 1998; Lal, 2002), and it has a
rock art tradition, next only to that of Australia and Africa in abundance, that is much older (Pandey, 1993; Bednarik, 2000). Some rock art has been
assigned to the Upper Paleolithic period. There is surprising uniformity, both in style and content, in the rock art paintings of the Mesolithic period
(10,000 – 2500 BCE) (Tyagi, 1992; Wakankar, 1992).
The archaeological phases of the Indus (or Sindhu-Sarasvati) tradition have been divided into four eras: early food-producing era (c. 6500- 5000
BCE), regionalization era (5000 – 2600 BCE), integration era (2600 – 1900 BCE), and localization era (1900 – 1300 BCE) (Shaffer,
1992). The early food-producing era lacked elaborate ceramic technology. The regionalization era was characterized by styles in ceramics, lapidary arts,
glazed faience and seal making that varied across regions. In the integration era, there is significant homogeneity in material culture over a large
geographical area and the use of the so-called Indus script, which is not yet deciphered. In the localization era, patterns of the integration era are
blended with regional ceramic styles, indicating decentralization and restructuring of the interaction networks. The localization era of the
Sindhu-Sarasvati tradition is the regionalization era of the Ganga-Yamuna tradition which transforms into the integration era of the Magadha and the
Mauryan dynasties. There is also continuity in the system of weights and lengths between the Harappan period and the later historic period (Mainkar, 1984).
The cultural mosaic in the third millennium BCE is characterized by the integration phase of the Harappan civilization of northwest India, copper and
copper/bronze age cultures or central and north India, and Neolithic cultures of south and east India (Lal, 1997). Five large cities of the integration
phase are Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, Ganweriwala, Rakhigarhi, and Dholavira. Other important sites of this period are Kalibangan, Rehman Dheri, Nausharo, Kot
Diji, and Lothal.
A majority of the towns and settlements of the Harappan period were in the Sarasvati valley region. Hydrological changes, extended period of drought, and
the drying up of the Sarasvati River due to its major tributaries being captured by the Sindh and Ganga Rivers after an earthquake in 1900 BCE led to the
abandonment of large areas of the Sarasvati valley (Kak, 1992). The Harappan phase went through various stages of decline during the second millennium BCE.
A second urbanization began in the Ganga and Yamuna valleys around 900 BCE. The earliest surviving records of this culture are in Brahmi script. This
second urbanization is generally seen at the end of the Painted Gray Ware (PGW) phase (1200- 800 BCE) and with the use of the Northern Black Polished Ware
(NBP) pottery. Late Harappan was partially contemporary with the PGW phase. In other words, a continuous series of cultural developments link the two early
urbanizations of India.
The setting for the hymns of the Ṛgveda, which is India’s most ancient literary text, is the area of Sapta Saindhava, the region of north
India bounded by the Sindh and the Ganga rivers although regions around this heartland are also mentioned. The Ṛgveda describes the
Sarasvati River to be the greatest of the rivers and going from the mountains to the sea. The archaeological record, suggesting that this river had turned
dry by1900 BCE, indicates that the Ṛgveda is prior to this epoch. The Ṛgveda and other early Vedic literature have
astronomical references related to the shifting astronomical frame that indicate epochs of the fourth and third millennium BCE which is consistent with the
hydrological evidence. The nakṣatra lists are found in the Vedas, either directly or listed under their presiding deities, and one may conclude that their
names have not changed. Vedic astronomy used a luni-solar year in which an intercalary month was employed as adjustment with solar year.
The shifting of seasons through the year and the shifting of the northern axis allow us to date several statements in the Vedic books (Sastry, 1985). Thus
the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (2.1.2.3) has a statement that points to an earlier epoch where it is stated that the Kṛttikā (Pleiades)
never swerve from the east. This corresponds to 2950 BCE. The Maitrāyaṇīya Brāhmaṇa Upaniṣad (6.14) refers to the winter solstice being at the mid-point of the Śraviṣṭhā segment and the summer solstice at the beginning of Maghā. This
indicates 1660 BCE. The Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa mentions that winter solstice was at the beginning of Śraviṣṭhā and
the summer solstice at the mid-point of Āśleṣā. This corresponds to about 1300 BCE.
The nakṣatras in the Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa are defined to be 27 equal parts of the ecliptic. The nakṣatra list of the late Vedic period begin with Kṛttikā
(Pleiades) whereas that of the astronomy texts after 200 CE begin with Ashvini (α and β Arietis), indicating a transition through 2 nakṣatras, or a time
span of about 2,000 years.
The foundation of Vedic cosmology is the notions of bandhu (homologies or binding between the outer and the inner). In the Āyurveda, medical
system associated with the Vedas, the 360 days of the year were taken to be mapped to the 360 bones of the developing fetus, which later fuse into the 206
bones of the person. It was estimated correctly that the sun and the moon were approximately 108 times their respective diameters from the earth (perhaps
from the discovery that the angular size of a pole removed 108 times its height is the same as that of the sun and the moon), and this number was used in
sacred architecture. The distance to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple from the gate and the perimeter of the temple were taken to be 54 and 180 units,
which are one-half each of 108 and 360 (Kak, 2005a). Homologies at many levels are at the basis of the idea of recursion, or repetition in scale
and time. The astronomical basis of the Vedic ritual was the reconciliation of the lunar and solar years (Kak, 2000a; Kak, 2000b).
Texts of the Vedic and succeeding periods provide us crucial understanding of the astronomy and the archaeoastronomy of the historical period throughout
India. The medieval period was characterized by pilgrimage centers that created sacred space mirroring conceptions of the cosmos. Sacred temple
architecture served religious and political ends.
The instruments that were used in Indian astronomy include the water clock (ghaṭi yantra), gnomon (śaṅku), cross-staff (yaṣṭi yantra), armillary sphere (gola-yantra), board for sun’s altitude (phalaka yantra), sundial (kapāla yantra), and astrolabe (Gangooly, 1880). In early 18th century, Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II
of Jaipur (r. 1699-1743) built five masonry observatories called Jantar Mantar in Delhi, Jaipur, Ujjain, Mathura, and Varanasi. The Jantar Mantar consists
of the Rāma Yantra (a cylindrical structure with an open top and a pillar in its center to measure the altitude of the sun), the Rāśivalaya Yantra (a group
of twelve instruments to determine celestial latitude and longitude), the Jaya Prakāśa (a concave hemisphere), the Laghu Samrāṭ Yantra (small sundial), the
Samrāṭ Yantra (a huge equinoctial dial), the Cakra Yantra (upright metal circles to find the right ascension and declination of a planet), the Digaṃśa
Yantra (a pillar surrounded by two circular walls), the Kapāla Yantra (two sunken hemispheres to determine the position of the sun relative to the planets
and the zodiac), the Ṣaṣṭāṃśa Yantra (to display a pinhole image of the Sun over a sixty-degree meridian scale), and the Nāḍīvalaya Yantra (a cylindrical
dial).
Pre-historical and Harappan Period
The city of Mohenjo-Daro (2500 BCE), like most other Harappan cities (with the exception of Dholavira as far as we know at this time) was divided into two
parts: the acropolis and the lower city. The Mohenjo-Daro acropolis, a cultural and administrative centre, had as its foundation a 12 meter high platform
of 400 m Í 200 m. The lower city had streets oriented according to the cardinal directions and provided with a network of covered drains. Its houses had
bathrooms. The city’s wells were so well constructed with tapering bricks that they have not collapsed in 5000 years. The Great Bath (12 m Í 7 m) was built
using finely fitted bricks laid on with gypsum plaster and made watertight with bitumen. A high corbelled outlet allowed it to be emptied easily. Massive
walls protected the city against flood water.
The absence of monumental buildings such as palaces and temples makes the Harappan city strikingly different from its counterparts of Mesopotamia and
Egypt, suggesting that the polity of the Harappan state was de-centralized and based on a balance between the political, the mercantile, and the religious
elites. The presence of civic amenities such as wells and drains attests to considerable social equality. The power of the mercantile guilds is clear in
the standardization of weights of carefully cut and polished chart cubes that form a combined binary and decimal system.
Mohenjo-Daro and other sites show slight divergence of 1° to 2° clockwise of the axes from the cardinal directions (Wanzke, 1984). It
is thought that this might have been due to the orientation of Aldebaran (Rohiṇi in Sanskrit) and the Pleiades (Kṛttikā in Sanskrit) that rose in the east during 3000 BCE to 2000 BCE at the spring equinox; the word “rohiṇi” literally means
rising. Furthermore, the slight difference in the orientations amongst the buildings in Mohenjo-Daro indicates different construction periods using the
same traditional sighting points that had shifted in this interval (Kenoyer, 1998).
Mohenjo-Daro’s astronomy used both the motions of the moon and the sun (Maula, 1984). This is attested by the use of great calendar stones, in the shape of
ring, which served to mark the beginning and end of the solar year.
Dholavira
Dholavira is located on an island just north of the large island of Kutch in Gujarat. Its strategic importance lay in its control of shipping between
Gujarat and the delta of the Sindh and Sarasvati rivers.
The layout of Dholavira is unique in that it comprises of three “towns,” which is in accord with Vedic ideas (Bisht, 1997; Bisht, 1999a; Bisht, 1999b). The
feature of recursion in the three towns, or repeating ratios at different scales, is significant. Specifically, the design is characterized by the nesting
proportion of 9:4 across the lower and the middle towns and the castle. The proportions of 5/4, 7/6, and 5/4 for the lower town, the middle town, and the
castle may reflect the measures related to the royal city, the commander’s quarter, and the king’s quarter, respectively, which was also true of Classical
India (Bhat, 1995).
A Dholavira length, D, has been determined by finding the largest measure which leads to integer dimensions for the various parts of the city. This measure
turns out be the same as the Arthaśāstra (300 BCE) measure of dhanus (bow) that equals 108 aṅgulas (fingers).
This scale is confirmed by a terracotta scale from Kalibangan and the ivory scale found in Lothal. The Kalibangan scale (Joshi, 2007; Balasubramaniam and
Joshi, 2008) corresponds to units of 17.5 cm, which is substantially the same as the Lothal scale and the small discrepancy may be a consequence of
shrinkage upon firing.
The analysis of the unit of length at Dholavira is in accord with the unit from the historical period (Danino, 2005; Danino, 2008). The unit that best fits
the Dholavira dimensions is 190.4 cm, which when divided by 108 gives the Dholavira aṅgula of 1.763 cm. The subunit of aṅgula is confirmed when one considers that the bricks in Harappa follow ratios of 1:2:4 with the dominating size being 7 Í 14 Í
28 cm (Kenoyer, 1998). These dimensions can be elegantly expressed as 4 Í 8 Í 16 aṅgulas, with the unit of aṅgula taken as 1.763 cm. It is significant that the ivory scale at Lothal has 27 graduations in 46 mm, or each graduation is 1.76 mm.
Figure 1. Map of Dholavira (Bisht, 1997)
With the new Dholavira unit of D, the dimensions of Mohenjo-Daro’s acropolis turn out to be 210 Í 105 D; Kalibangan’s acropolis turn out to be 126 Í 63 D.
The dimensions of the lower town of Dholavira are 405 Í 324 D; the width of the middle town is 180 D; and the inner dimensions of the castle are 60 Í 48 D.
The sum of the width and length of the lower town comes to 729 which is astronomically significant since it is 27 Í 27, and the width 324 equals the
nakshatra year 27 Í 12.
Continuity has been found between the grid and modular measures in the town planning of Harappa and historical India, including that of Kathmandu Valley
(Pant and Funo, 2005). The measure of 19.2 meters is the unit in quarter-blocks of Kathmandu; this is nearly the same as the unit characteristic of the
dimensions of Dholavira. It shows that the traditional architects and town planners have continued the use of the same units over this long time span.
Rehman Dheri
A 3rd millennium seal from Rehman Dheri, showing a pair of scorpions on one side and two antelopes on the other, that suggests knowledge of Vedic themes.
It has been suggested that this seal represents the opposition of the Orion (Mṛgaśiras, or antelope head) and the Scorpio (Rohiṇi of the southern
hemisphere which is 14 nakṣatras from the Rohiṇi of the northern hemisphere) nakṣatras. The arrow near the head of one of the antelopes could represent the
decapitation of Orion. It is generally accepted that the myth of Prajāpati being killed by Rudra represents the shifting of the beginning of the year away
from Orion, placing the astronomical event in the fourth millennium BCE (Kak, 2000a).
Figure 2. Astronomical seal from Rehman Dheri
Neolithic and Megalithic Sites
Interesting sites of archaeoastronomical interest include the Neolithic site of Burzahom from Kashmir in North India, and megalithic sites from Brahmagiri
and Hanamsagar from Karnataka in South India.
Burzahom, Kashmir
This Neolithic site is located about 10 km northeast of Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley on a terrace of Late Pleistocene-Holocene deposits. Dated to around
3000 - 1500 BCE, its deep pit dwellings are associated with ground stone axes, bone tools, and gray burnished pottery. A stone slab of 48 cm Í 27 cm,
obtained from a phase dated to 2125 BCE shows two bright objects in the sky with a hunting scene in the foreground. These have been assumed to be a
depiction of a double star system (Kameshwar Rao, 2005).
Figure 3. Burzahom sky scene
Brahmagiri, Karnataka
The megalithic stone circles of Brahmagiri in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka in South India, which have been dated to 900 BCE, show astronomical
orientations. This site is close to Siddapur where two minor Aśokan rock edicts were found in 1891. Kameswara Rao (1993) has argued that site lines from
the centre of a circle to an outer tangent of another circle point to the directions of the sunrise and full moon rise at the time of the solar and lunar
solstices and equinox.
Figure 4. Megalithic stone circles of Brahmagiri
Hanamsagar, Karnataka.
Hanamsagar is a megalithic site with stone alignments pointing to cardinal directions. It is located on a flat area between hills about 6 km north of the
Kṛṣṇā river at latitude 16o 19’ 18” and longitude 76o 27’ 10”. The stones, which are smooth granite, are arranged in a square of side that is about 600 meters with 50 rows and 50 column (for a total of 2,500
stones), with a separation between stones of about 12 m. The stones are between 1 to 2.5 m in height with a maximum diameter of 2 to 3 m. The lines are
oriented in cardinal directions. There is a squarish central structure known as cakri kaṭṭi.
It has been argued that the directions of summer and winter solstice can be fixed in relation to the outer and the inner squares. Kameswara Rao (2005)
suggests that it could have been used for several other kind of astronomical observations such as use of shadows to tell the time of the day, the
prediction of months, seasons and passage of the year.
Figure 5. Alignments at Hanamsagar
Acknowledgements.
I am thankful to R. Balasubramaniam, Michel Danino, McKim Malville, and Rana P.B. Singh for their advice. The essay is dedicated to the memory of R.
Balasubramaniam who passed away in December 2009.
This article is the unabridged version of an essay written for the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).
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