Brother Feng
1. Astronomical thought in the Vedic era
As early as the 40th to 35th centuries BC, the Indus Valley entered the Neolithic Age, and in the 25th century BC l8th century BC, primitive agriculture and animal husbandry appeared, entering the era of urbanized Harappan civilization.
Pinglee of Brown University in the United States divides the history of Indian astronomy into five periods:
(1) 1000 BC-400 BC, this period is known as the Vedic period because of the religious literature of the time, the Vedas;
(2) 400-200 B.C. was a period influenced by Babylonian astronomy;
(3) 200-400 C.E. was a period of combined influence from Babylonian astronomy and Greek astronomy;
(4) 400-1600 A.D. was a period influenced by Greek astronomy;
(5) The period from 1600 to 1800 A.D. was influenced by Islamic astronomy.
Before the official emergence of religion in India, the ancient Indians mainly believed in nature gods. These nature gods include totems of fertility gods and animal and plant gods.
The fertility cult of the ancient Indians was mainly manifested in the worship of the male reproductive organs and the goddess of fertility, Parvati.
The official emergence of the religion in India was during the Vedic era.
As early as the middle of the 20th century BC, the Aryans began to enter the Ganges valley from the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs, and after a long war, conquered the Dravidians, the indigenous people of ancient India.
The gradual integration of the nations led to the rise of Brahmanism, which had three programs: "Vedic Revelation", "Sacrifice to the Almighty", and "Above Brahman". The Vedas preached in Brahmanism refer to the religious texts of the Aryans, the 4 Vedas.
The Vedas they preach are believed to have been transmitted from the gods of heaven and created by Brahma, the god of creation, who combined the three gods of fire, wind, and the 13 gods, and the Vedas are the only correct understanding. Like the gods of ancient Greece, the gods of the Vedas intervened in mortal affairs.
There are a total of 33 deities, led by the god of war, the god of war, who represent the celestial bodies, the atmosphere, the land, and the necessities of sacrifice (such as fire, offerings, and places of worship).
The Upanishads are both the end of the Vedic literature and the summary of Vedic philosophy, hence the name "Vedantana".
Vedic philosophy is mainly an exploration of the origins of Indian philosophical thought, the Vedas, especially the philosophical ideas contained in the Rigveda, which have had a profound impact on Indian philosophy.
From the point of view of eternity, Brahman is the only reality, the absolute, the eternal and indestructible, the true self of all of us (the Atman).
From a non-eternal point of view, the world of experience in all its forms is an illusion created by Maya, all things are the embodiment of Brahman, any difference belongs to the phenomenal world, and the distinction between the individual soul (Jain) and the self (Atman, the finite soul with the infinite soul of Brahman) is also an illusion.
Brahmins were priests who practiced religion, Kshatriyas were kings and warriors, Vaishyas were farmers and craftsmen who were engaged in productive activities, and Shudras were slaves and casteless untouchables.
In ancient Indian mythology, there are three main gods, they are the god of creation (also known as the great Brahma), the god of destruction Shiva (also known as the great freedom of heaven), and the reincarnation god Vishnu (also known as the god of reincarnation).
Among them, Shiva came from the forehead of Brahma, and all the destructive powers and terrible characteristics of the gods were concentrated in him, and the people feared him very much.
At the time of the destruction of the universe, Shiva danced on a swirling halo of flames and stepped on the asuras.
In the floating golden egg of the universe, Vishnu rests on the body of Ananta, the serpent of infinite time, who has many heads, before starting to create a new universe.
However, due to ignorance, people are extremely attached to the earthly world and are entangled in karmic retribution. Karma determines the reincarnation of people, and those who do good become good, and those who do evil become evil.
If a person believes in the gods and practices the Vedas, he will devote himself to the heavenly path after death.
If a person practices the Vedas, but his actions are inferior to those of the heavenly path, he will be reborn in the ancestral path after death and reborn as a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, etc. If a person does not believe in the gods and disobeys the obligations of the caste, he will be thrown into the animal path after death, reborn as a plant or animal, etc.
If one can completely abandon earthly life and practice all kinds of austerities, almsgiving, truthfulness, abstinence, etc., one can visualize the nature of the Atman, witness the oneness of Brahmanism, and attain liberation.
2. Astronomical thought in Buddhism
In the 6th century B.C., ancient India's economy developed rapidly, and powerful countries competed for hegemony.
In this social context, new religions were established and emerged. During this period, the religion of ancient India formed a situation of a hundred schools of thought, which was called the "Shamanism", and since then there has been a long-term and fierce struggle between Brahmanism and the Shamanism. Buddhism, Jainism, and materialism.
The doctrine of shunsheng was the most popular unconventional trend of salmonism at that time.
During the period influenced by Babylonian astronomy, an important development of the Hindu calendar was the emergence of the Jain-related Jain calendar, which was actually a lunisolar calendar that primarily regulated the relationship between the solar year and the synodic month.
Jainism is known in Buddhist texts as the Naked Outer Path, and was founded by the raft Mana known as "Nobita". Jainism believes that the universe is made up of "destiny"
It is composed of "non-life", and there are two kinds of life: moving and immovable.
Moving beings are bound beings, reincarnated in the world, and universally present in all existences, which are what we now call animals and plants.
Immovable life exists in the four elements of earth, water, fire, and wind, which is equivalent to inorganic matter, similar to the material concept of the four elements of "earth, water, fire, and air" that was popular in ancient Greece. There are two types of non-life: fixed and unshaped.
The definite non-life is composed of the smallest and indivisible atoms, and has the properties of color, fragrance, ambiguity, and touch.
The amorphous non-life is time, space, law, and illegality. Time offers the possibility of continuation, change, movement of everything that exists.
Space is the place where everything exists and moves. Law is a condition of movement, and illegality is a condition of stillness. The indefinite and amorphous non-life is equivalent to using mathematical logic to analyze things, and finally obtain the basic relationship terms and basic relations.
Buddhism believes that the universe is made up of worlds that are far more "unspeakable and unspeakable" than the number of sands in the Ganges, and that "a small world" is the smallest unit in the world system that makes up the universe. With Mount Meru as the central axis, plus the nine mountains and eight seas, the four continents (four heavens) and the sun, moon and stars around it, they are combined into one unit, which is called one world.
There are eight big mountains such as Yougandra around Mount Meru, surrounded by layers, and the outermost layer is called Tiewei Mountain. And between the mountains, there is a sea of water, and the outermost sea is called the Great Aral Sea.
The inner seven seas that surround Mt. Meru are collectively called the Inland Sea, and their waters are all fragrant merit water, and the strange fragrance is overflowing. The outermost Tiewei Mountain, the central Sumeru Mountain, and the seven mountains in the middle are the so-called "Nine Mountains", and the Seven Incense Seas plus the outermost Daesung Sea are the so-called "Eight Seas".
There are "four continents" in Chenghai, and the four continents are:
Dongsheng Shenzhou in the east, Nanzhan Buzhou in the south, Xiniu Cargo State in the west, and Beijulu State in the north.
Each continent also has two similarly shaped, smaller continents as its two wings, making a total of eight continents, and hundreds of smaller continents scattered throughout.
The entire Nine Mountains, Eight Seas, and Four Continents are located on top of the five wheels, and the five wheels are in order from top to bottom: the earth wheel, the golden wheel, the water wheel, the wind wheel, and the lowest level is the endless void.
The wind rose in ten directions in the void, and due to the agitation of the wind, the qi gradually condensed. After the qi formed a wind wheel above the void, the sky was filled with golden clouds, pouring torrential rain, and integrating into the water wheel.
The water condenses into a golden wheel (referring to the rock wheel), which is held by water, like cooked cream floating on the surface of the water. The golden wheel is covered with 80,000 thick soft soil, which is the earth. Mount Meru is erected in the center of the earth wheel, and the edge of it is inlaid with an iron fence mountain.
Buddhism is very bold in conceiving the infinity of the universe and very meticulous in conceiving a model of the structure of the universe, which has aroused the interest and admiration of some scholars. However, the structural pattern of countless worlds in Buddhist cosmology is completely analogous parallel listing and superimposing on top and bottom;
In terms of details, it uses the existing understanding of the world at that time, coupled with the yearning for a better world and the fantasy with religious complexes, which is completely inconsistent with the world structure obtained after the great geographical discovery.
It is a kind of monotonous and infinite evil infinite thinking that increases the level of the same kind of world, and finally: there is nothing new under the sun, everything is an eternal cycle of life.
Buddhism believes that the sun, moon and stars do not actually rise or fall, but that they always revolve around Mount Meru in the sky above the four continents, halfway up Mount Meru.
Because they are sometimes obscured by Mount Meru in the process of rotation, their light cannot reach the "Nanzhan Buzhou" where we live, so there will be day and night, and we will mistake it for sunrise and sunset.
It is also explained that the situation is exactly the same as what we see on other continents, except that on the continents east and west, south and north, day and night are opposite.
Buddhism recognizes that directions and day and night are artificially defined, and there seems to be a notion that people living in different regions have time differences, sometimes even in black and white.
Buddhism recognizes that the moon's absence is related to occlusion, but mistakenly believes that the moon's absence is the result of the sun's occlusion.
Buddhism believes that there is no such thing in the world as unchanging, and that everything in the universe has a process of generation, development, and extinction of "becoming, dwelling, decaying, and emptiness", during which an immeasurable period of time is called the "Four Eons", and the cycle is repeated to infinity.
In the course of the cosmic cycle, the earth, water, fire, and wind, which make up the four elements of the world, are formed by the karmic causes and conditions of sentient beings, and are extinguished by fire, water, and wind disasters.
The Buddhist understanding of the elements is close to the intuitive theory of matter of Empedocles and Aristotle in ancient Greece, and hardly reaches the abstract speculative height of Democritus's atomism and the atomism of the Indian Triumphists.
The understanding of disasters is almost limited to the meteorological catastrophes that may occur on the earth, and the Buddhist view of cosmic evolution has certain limitations compared to the magnificent process of cosmic evolution revealed by modern science.
The understanding of the cycle of things is a theoretical generalization based on a large number of empirical inductions, and there is almost no explanation of the theoretical mechanism.
Bibliography:
[1] Niu Weixing, Xiwang Brahma, Shanghai: Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2004.
[2] Editorial Board of Civilization Exploration Series, Ancient India, Zhengzhou: Elephant Publishing House, 2005.
[3] Taisho Shinshu Tripitaka (Volume 19), Taisho All Sutras Publishing Association, 1934.
[41 Ma Zhonggeng.Buddhism and Science[M].Beijing:Social Sciences Academic Press,2007.