How did Indians know about the speed of light even before it was discovered in 1675?

Question

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“Everybody knows the speed of light is 186,000 miles which is actually discovered in 1675 by ROMAR. But the hymn 1.50 of the Rigveda on the Sun, says
[O Sun] you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesa.The usual meaning of yojana is about 9 miles as in the Artha´saastra and for nimisha.
The measures of time are thus defined in the Puranas:
15 nimesa = 1 kastha
30kastha= 1 kala
30 kala = 1 muhurta
30 muhurta = 1 day-and-night

A nimesa is therefore equal to 16/75 seconds. It does come very close to the correct figure of 186,000 miles per second.”

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Answer 1

I think most of the people here are missing the point. The question here is not whether the indians were better than the rest or if they really knew the spped of light?

They already knew the calculations and calculated in their prevalent units. The question here is HOW did they measure it sooo accurately without the use of complicated instruments that we posses?
To give a brief about how the ancient indians managed the calculation of the speed of light, we need to know how did we calculate the speed of light today?

Refer to the attached link on how Roemer calculated the spped of light.

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/waves_particles/lightspeed_evidence.html

Now if you know that the planets revolve around the run and moons around the planets it does nto remain so difficult correct? Now we know that the sun/ moon / stars appears to move faster when on top rather than the horizon. This is also partially because the light reaches us marginally later than when they are at the top of the sky. Taking this logic if you apply to the stars of to a comet. We will have a situation very similar to Roemer's. I can think of a million ways to calculate the speed of light just by knowing the path of the celestial bodies. And we KNOW the ancient Indians had already calculated this. So it is no surprise that they knew the spped of light.

Do we really think that we need to have super computers to calculate such data? I would suggest a small reading of vedic mathematics. This science makes making huge calculations much simpler. Once the maths is made simple, the rest is just a matter of observation and experimentation. We do know that ancient indians knew the value of PI to a much greater decimal point than most of us have botherred to calculate. We also know that they were able to distinguish between planets and stars and knew that the earth reloved around the sun.

When we learn that the speed of light was discovered is a particular year, we are learning the western history NOT the knowledge we accumulated over the years.

The only difference between the western discovery and indian discovery is that we beat them by a few thousand years. The speed of light is not the only discovery, we knew about the pythagoras theorm before pythagoras discoverd it. :-) We knew about atoms before Bhor bombarded a gold foil with electrons. We knew about plastic surgery long before the beauty peagents were invented.

We marvel at the old knowledge because the west has led us to believe that we are a poor country of idiots and they are the smart ones. Why else are our discoveries credited to their scientists?

Answer 2

Everybody knows the speed of light is 186,000 miles which is actually discovered in 1675 by ROMAR. But the hymn 1.50 of the Rigveda on the Sun, says
[O Sun] you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesa.The usual meaning of yojana is about 9 miles as in the Artha´saastra and for nimisha.
The measures of time are thus defined in the Puranas:
15 nimesa = 1 kastha
30kastha= 1 kala
30 kala = 1 muhurta
30 muhurta = 1 day-and-night

A nimesa is therefore equal to 16/75 seconds. It does come very close to the correct figure of 186,000 miles per second.”

Answer 3

The hymn 1.50 of the Rigveda on the Sun, says
[O Sun] you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesa.The usual meaning of yojana is about 9 miles as in the Artha´saastra and for nimisha.
The measures of time are thus defined in the Puranas:
15 nimesa = 1 kastha
30kastha= 1 kala
30 kala = 1 muhurta
30 muhurta = 1 day-and-night

A nimesa is therefore equal to 16/75 seconds. It does come very close to the correct figure of 186,000 miles per second.”

Answer 4

We survey early Indian ideas on the speed of light and the size of
the universe. A context is provided for Sayana’s statement (14th century) that the speed is 2,202 yojanas per half nimesa (186,000 miles per second!).

The units of yojana and nimes.a are well known. The usual meaning of yojana is about 9 miles as in the Arthasastra where it is defined as being equal to 8,000 dhanu or “bow,” where each dhanu is taken to be about 6 feet. Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and other astronomers used smaller yojanas but such exceptional usage was confined to the astronomers; we will show that the Puranas also use a non-standard measure of yojana. As a scholar of the Vedas and a non-astronomer, Sayana would be expected to use the “standard” Arthasastra units.

The measures of time are thus defined in the Puranas:

15 nimesa = 1 kastha
30 kastha = 1 kala
30 kala = 1 muhurta
30 muhurta = 1 day-and-night
A nimesa is therefore equal to 16/75 seconds.

De and Vartak have in recent books argued that this statement refers to the speed of light. Converted into modern units, it does come very close to the correct figure of 186,000 miles per second!

Answer 5

Ancient india have lot of high profiled researchers who did all the explorations even much before that been done by western scientists.
The Speed Of Light
A vast body of scientific information is hidden in ancient Hindu scriptures and Sanskrit texts. One such book is the celebrated commentary on the Rigveda by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), a minister in the court of King Bukka I of the Vijayanagar Empire in South India. Sayana comments on a verse in Rigveda that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. Yojana is an ancient Indian unit of length and nimesa is the unit of time. Upon conversion in modern units, this yields the value of 186,000 miles per second. Now it is well known that this is the velocity of light. Why would Sayana call this the velocity of Sun? It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents light. In the modern times the speed of light was first determined in 1675 by Roemer. Until then light was taken to travel with infinite velocity. Even Newton assumed so.

Answer 6

A vast body of scientific information is hidden in ancient Hindu
scriptures and Sanskrit texts. One such book is the celebrated
commentary on the Rigveda by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), a minister in the
court of King Bukka I of the Vijayanagar Empire in South India.

Sayana comments on a verse in Rigveda that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas
in half a nimesha. Yojana is an ancient Indian unit of length and
nimesa is the unit of time. Upon conversion in modern units, this
yields the value of 186,000 miles per second. Now it is well known that
this is the velocity of light. Why would Sayana call this the velocity
of Sun? It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian
tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents
light.


In the modern times the speed of light was first determined in 1675 by
Roemer. Until then light was taken to travel with infinite velocity.
Even Newton assumed so.

Answer 7

The Speed Of Light

A vast body of scientific information is hidden in ancient Hindu scriptures and Sanskrit texts. One such book is the celebrated commentary on the Rigveda by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), a minister in the court of King Bukka I of the Vijayanagar Empire in South India. Sayana comments on a verse in Rigveda that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. Yojana is an ancient Indian unit of length and nimesa is the unit of time. Upon conversion in modern units, this yields the value of 186,000 miles per second. Now it is well known that this is the velocity of light. Why would Sayana call this the velocity of Sun? It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents light. In the modern times the speed of light was first determined in 1675 by Roemer. Until then light was taken to travel with infinite velocity. Even Newton assumed so.

Answer 8

A vast body of scientific information is hidden in ancient Hindu scriptures and Sanskrit texts. One such book is the celebrated commentary on the Rigveda by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), a minister in the court of King Bukka I of the Vijayanagar Empire in South India. Sayana comments on a verse in Rigveda that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. Yojana is an ancient Indian unit of length and nimesa is the unit of time. Upon conversion in modern units, this yields the value of 186,000 miles per second. Now it is well known that this is the velocity of light. Why would Sayana call this the velocity of Sun? It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents light. In the modern times the speed of light was first determined in 1675 by Roemer. Until then light was taken to travel with infinite velocity. Even Newton assumed so.

Answer 9

Sayana comments on a verse in Rigveda that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. Yojana is an ancient Indian unit of length and nimesa is the unit of time. Upon conversion in modern units, this yields the value of 186,000 miles per second. Now it is well known that this is the velocity of light. Why would Sayana call this the velocity of Sun? It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents
light.

Answer 10

The Indo-Aryan school of philosophy in ancient India also held the speed of light to be finite. A comment on the Rig Veda written by the 14th century philosopher Sayana can be interpreted to give a value for the speed of light close to the actual value, though other interpretations are also possible

A vast body of scientific information is hidden in ancient Hindu scriptures and Sanskrit texts. One such book is the celebrated commentary on the Rigveda by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), a minister in the court of King Bukka I of the Vijayanagar Empire in South India.

Sayana comments on a verse in Rigveda that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. Yojana is an ancient Indian unit of length and nimesa is the unit of time. Upon conversion in modern units, this yields the value of 186,000 miles per second. Now it is well known that this is the velocity of light. Why would Sayana call this the velocity of Sun? It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents light.

In the modern times the speed of light was first determined in 1675 by Roemer. Until then light was taken to travel with infinite velocity. Even Newton assumed so.

Answer 11

A vast body of scientific information is hidden in ancient Hindu
scriptures and Sanskrit texts. One such book is the celebrated
commentary on the Rigveda by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), a minister in the court of King Bukka I of the Vijayanagar Empire in South India.

Sayana comments on a verse in Rigveda that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. Yojana is an ancient Indian unit of length and nimesa is the unit of time. Upon conversion in modern units, this yields the value of 186,000 miles per second. Now it is well known that this is the velocity of light. Why would Sayana call this the velocity of Sun? It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents light.


In the modern times the speed of light was first determined in 1675 by Roemer. Until then light was taken to travel with infinite velocity.

Even Newton assumed so.