Subject: Re: [HM] Flat earth fallacy
From: Dinesh Maheshwari (dsm@cypress.com)
Date: Wed Feb 23 2000 - 22:03:00 EST
> Interestingly, the cosmology of the Indian Puranas (unlike the Indian
> astronomical tradition, which maintains the earth's sphericity) has
> the same sort of setup, and I wonder if that could be an intermediate
> source of Cosmas' scheme.
Kim is correct in stating that Indian Puranas have a circular disk setup
for the earth. However, it has to be mentioned that the Puranas were composed
by the intellectuals (brahmins) as a medium to render ideas, theology and
philosophy in an understandable form to the masses; and the Puranic text was
"fictionalized" form of theology, ideas, philosophy, facts etc.
In the Puranic texts, the earth was fictionalized as being a flat disk with
a fictional Mount Meru at it's center on the island of JambuDwipa surrounded
by the ocean. As I understand, JambuDwipa was itself divided into 7 segments,
corresponding to the 7 "then presumed" land masses and the north pole was
mapped to SwetaDwipa. The pole star was depicted to be aligned with the tip
of Mount Meru. The river Ganges was known to originate from the Himalayas
but in the Mount Meru model it was fictionalized to originate from Mount Meru.
In my opinion, Puranas were an excellent medium to propagate philosophy and
theology in understandable form to the masses but unfortunately it also
propagated "fictionalized" facts.
Best Regards,
Dinesh
--
Dinesh Maheshwari
Advanced Design Methods
Cypress Semiconductor
San Jose, CA, USA
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