Sandracottus
New Member
This post is dedicated to MasterGhostknight who said
I had told him that Modern Trigonometry ( and I mean strictly Modern) began when the sine and cosine functions were defined and their tables formulated around 480 AD by Aryabhatta and his immediate predecessors .But he insisted that " Modern" trigonometry began with the Sumerians , having come to learn that Claudius Ptolemy and Hipparchus are Eurocentric constructs .
But this post , I hope, will change his opinion.
Two things failed to escape me in reading his statement. One is the stereotypical attitude he has ( just as almost everyone else here might have) about the Vedic literature. I am sure he has not read a single page of the near 5000 printed pages equivalent . Yet he is absolutely certain that they are a total waste being , in his words, religious texts. The second is his use of a wrong term " Sumerians" when he should have actually said "Babylonians".
I am well aware of the lack of knowledge of of the majority of mankind about the literary, philosophical and astronomical merits of the Rig Veda and the foremost position it holds in the history of intellectual and scientific thought.
Now I am aware well enough that the few of you who have heard of the Vedas have been led by the colonial version of history to say " Vedas were written around 1500 BC"[/color]
That is a silly, downright disgusting and unforgivable lie. That was a theory based on another theory which itself was based on another unproven theory. . The Rig Veda is a purely neolithic creation dating between 5000 and 3500 BC.
I will surely yield another post in which I will sufficiently provide the archaeological, literary, astronomical and geological evidence that will prove the true antiquity of the Rig veda.
For those of you who would rather investigate it on their own, here is an unchallenged and rigorous paper by Nicholas Kazanas---
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/rie.pdf
But this post has absolutely no requirement of proving the actual date of the Rig Veda. Even using the date of 1500 BC, though it is extremely incorrect, Babylonians can be defeated as far as the 360 degrees are concerned. So the above little discussion was just to prepare the milieu for the said issue that shall be dealt with in the near future, if indeed anyone expresses their interest, for I have seen the futility of discussions that fail to summon engrossed audience.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------xxxxxxxx-------------------------------------------------------------
" Sumerians founded Trigonometry " is Ghostys assertion.
Some of us may know what he tries to mean by it. He means that the Babylonians were the first to discover the Zodiac and the circle of 360 degrees around 700 BC.
But is it true ?
No. Not in any extant way
For it can be shown in the Rig Veda just as it is fairly easy to show how Vedic astronomy influenced Babylon and through it Greece.
I can even give the name of the man who discovered the 360 degrees. He was Dirgatamas , one of the 321 men and women who contributed to composing the Rig Veda.
Some scholars have claimed that the Babylonians invented the zodiac of 360 degrees around 700 BCE, perhaps even earlier. Many claim that India received the knowledge of the zodiac from Babylonia or even later from Greece. However, as old as the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, there are clear references to a chakra or wheel of 360 spokes placed in the sky. The number 360 and its related numbers like 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 108, 432 and 720 occur commonly in Vedic symbolism. It is in the hymns of the great Rishi Dirghatamas (RV I.140, 164) that we have the clearest such references.
Dirghatamas is one of the most famous Rig Vedic Rishis. He was the reputed purohit or chief priest of King Bharata (Aitareya Brahmana VIII.23), one of the earliest kings of the land, from which India as Bharata (the traditional name of the country) was named. Dirghatamas was one of the Angirasa Rishis, the oldest of the Rishi families, and regarded as brother to the Rishi Bharadvaja, who is the seer of the sixth book of the Rig Veda. Dirghatamas is also the chief predecessor of the Gotama family of Rishis that includes Kakshivan, Gotama, Nodhas and Vamadeva (seer of the fourth book of the Rig Veda), who along with Dirghatamas account for almost 150 of the 1000 hymns of the Rig Veda. His own verses occur frequently in many Vedic texts, a few even in the Upanishads.
Salutations to Dirgatamas
The hymns of Dirghatamas speak clearly of a zodiac of 360 degrees, divided in various ways, including by three, six and twelve, as well as related numbers of five and seven. We must remember that the zodiac is first of all a mathematical division of the heavens such as this hymn outlines. This is defined mainly according to the elements, qualities and planetary rulerships of the twelve signs. The symbols we ascribe to these twelve divisions is a different factor that can vary to some degree. The actual stars making up the constellation that goes along with the sign is yet a third factor. For example, some constellations are less or more than thirty degrees, but the mathematical or harmonic division of each sign will only be thirty degrees. What is important about the hymns of Dirghatamas is that he shows the mathematical basis of such harmonic divisions of a zodiac of 360 degrees.
For Dirghatamas, as was the case for much of later Vedic astronomy, the main God of the zodiac is the Sun God called Vishnu. Vishnu rules over the highest heaven and is sometimes identified with the pole star or polar point, which in the unique view of Vedic astronomy is the central point that governs all celestial motions and form which these are calculated.
According to Dirghatamas Rig Veda I.155.6, "With four times ninety names (caturbhih sakam navatim ca namabhih), he (Vishnu) sets in motion moving forces like a turning wheel (cakra)." This suggests that even in Vedic times Vishnu had 360 names or forms, one for each degree of the zodiac. A fourfold division may correspond to the solstices and equinoxes. Elsewhere Dirghatamas states, I.164.36, "Seven half embryos form the seed of the world. They stand in the dharma by the direction of Vishnu." This probably refers to the seven planets.
We should note that the zodiac of twelve signs is divided into three sections based upon a similar understanding, starting with Aries or fire (cardinal fire ruled by Mars, who in Vedic thought is the fire born of the Earth), then with Leo or the Sun (fixed fire ruled by the Sun), and then with Sagittarius, the atmospheric fire, lightning or wind (mutable fire ruled by Jupiter, the God of the rains).
Seven yoke the chariot that has a single wheel (chakra). One horse that has seven names carries it. The wheel has three naves, is undecaying and never overcome, where all these beings are placed.
RV I. 164. 2
The zodiac is the single wheeled-chariot or circle yoked by the seven planets which are all forms of the Sun or sunlight. It is the wheel of time on which all beings are placed. The Vedic horse (ashva) is symbolic of energy or propulsive force.
11. The wheel of law with twelve spokes does not decay as it revolves around heaven. Oh Fire, here your 720 sons abide.
RV I.164.11
The circle of the zodiac has twelve signs. It has 720 half degrees or twins, making 360 total. The Shatapatha Brahmana X.5.5, a late Vedic text, also speaks of a wheel of heaven with 720 divisions. "But indeed that Fire-altar is also the Nakshatras. For there are twenty seven of these Nakshatras and twenty-seven secondary Nakshatras. This makes 720." Twenty-seven times twenty-seven Nakshatras equals 729, with which some overlap can be related to the 720 half-degrees of the zodiac.
The sevenfold wheel is the zodiac moved by the seven planets. The six spokes are the six double signs through which the planets travel. The same verse occurs in the Prashna Upanishad I.11 as a symbol for the year.
13. Revolving on this five-spoked wheel all beings stand. Though it carries a heavy load, its axle does not over heat. From of old it does not break its ancient laws.
RV I.164 .13
The five-spoked wheel is again the zodiac ruled by five planets and five elements and their various internal and external correspondences.
The planets are often associated with the rishis in Vedic thought, particularly the rishis Brihaspati (Jupiter), Shukra (Venus) and Kashyapa (the Sun) which became common names for the planets. Their ordainer or stabilizer may be the pole star (polar point).
Twelve are its fellies. The wheel is one. It has three naves. Who has understood it? In It are held together like spokes the 360, both moving and non-moving.
RV I.164.48
This perhaps the clearest verse that refers to the zodiac of twelve signs and three hundred and sixty degrees. The same verse also occurs in Atharva Veda (X.8.4). The zodiac has three divisions as fire, lightning and Sun or Aries, Sagittarius and Leo that represent these three forms of fire. The 360 spokes are the 360 degrees which revolve in the sky but remain in the same place in the zodiac.
If we examine the hymn overall, we see that a heavenly circle of 360 degrees and 12 signs is known, along with 7 planets. It also has a threefold division of the signs which can be identified with that of fire, wind (lightning) and Sun (Aries, Sagittarius, Leo) and a sixfold division that can be identified with the planets each ruling two signs of the zodiac. This provides the basis for the main factors of the zodiac and signs as we have known them historically. We have all the main factors for the traditional signs of the zodiac except the names and symbols of each individual sign.
The zodiac in Vedic thought is the wheel of the Sun. It is the circle created by the Sun's rays.
,
"But, indeed, the Fire-altar also is the Sun. The regions are its enclosing stones, and there are 360 of these, because 360 regions encircle the Sun on all sides. And 360 are the rays of the Sun."
The Shatapatha Brahmana X.5.4 ,
Yajur Veda
Western scholars of the history of astronomy like David Pingree have accepted the astronomical basis of this hymn. In an article, "Astronomy in India" in Astronomy Before the Telescope, C. Walker (ed.), St. Martin's Press, New York, 1996, pps. 123-124, Pingree suggests that Mul. Apin, Babylonian tablets that date from 687 to 500 BC has "'an ideal calendar' in which one year contains 12 months, each of which has 30 days, and consequently exactly 360 days; a late hymn of the Rgveda refers to the same 'ideal calendar'. And Mul.Apin describes the oscillation of the rising-point of the sun along the eastern horizon between its extremities when it is at the solstices; the same oscillation is described in the Aitareya Brahmana.'" This ideal calendar is the basis for the zodiac and its twelve signs at a mathematical level. Clearly Pingree is referring to Rig Veda I.164 as his 'late' hymn of the Rig Veda.
To quote from David Pingree's "History of mathematical astronomy in India," in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, C.S. Gillespie (ed.), pp. 533-633, Charles Scribners, New York, 1981, page 534: "In the case of the priority of the Rgveda to the Brahmanas, it is not always clear that the views expressed in the latter developed historically after the composition of the former. All texts that can reasonably be dated before ca. 500 BC are here considered to represent essentially a single body of more or less uniform material." The point of his statement is to try to get such Rig Veda references as those of Dirghatamas later than the Brahmana texts as both reflect a similar sophisticated astronomy, which is necessary to make it later than the Babylonian references and a product of a Babylonian influence as he proposes. This requires reducing all the layers of Vedic literature to a more or less uniform mass at a very late date, which is contrary to almost every view of the text.
Clearly this Rig Veda hymn, which has parallels and developments in the Brahmanas (like the Shatapatha Brahmana quoted in this chapter), must be earlier and show that such ideas were much older than the Brahmanas. To maintain his late date for Vedic astrology, Pingree must assume that this hymn or its particular astronomical verses were late interpolations to the Rig Veda, around 500 BCE or about the time of the Buddha. This is rather odd because the Buddha is generally regarded as having come long after the Vedic period.
Even the Brahmanas, like the Upanishads that come after them, are pre-Buddhist by all accounts. Perhaps the main Vedic ritual given in the Brahmanas, the Gavamayana, follows the model of a year of 360 days and is divided into two halves based upon the solstices, showing that such an 'ideal' calendar was central to Vedic thought. That such an ideal calendar has its counterpart in the sky is well reflected in Vedic ideas saying that equate the days and nights with the Sun's rays and with the stars (as we have noted in Shatapatha Brahmana with 720 Upanakshatras)*. The Brahmanas, we should also note, emphasize the Krittikas or the Pleiades as the first of the Nakshatras, reflecting an astronomical era of the Taurus equinox. The Shatapatha Brahmana notes that the Krittikas mark the eastern direction.
In addition, the hymn, its verses and commentaries on them are found in many places in Vedic literature, along with support references to Nakshatras. It cannot be reduced to a late addition but is an integral part of the text.
That being the case, a zodiac of 360 degrees and its twelvefold division are much older in India than any Greek or even Babylonian references that he has come up with.
Pingree also tries to reduce the ancient Vedic calendar work Vedanga Jyotish to 500 BCE or to a Babylonian influence. However, the internal date of this late Vedic text is of a summer solstice in Aslesha or 1300 BCE, information referenced by Varaha Mihira in his Brihat Samhita (III.1-2). "There was indeed a time when the Sun's southerly course (summer solstice) began from the middle of the Nakshatra Aslesha and the northerly one (winter solstice) from the beginning of the Nakshatra Dhanishta. For it has been stated so in ancient works. At present the southerly course of the Sun starts from the beginning of Cancer and the other from the initial point of the sign Capricorn." The middle of Aslesha is 23 20 Cancer, while the beginning of Dhanishta (Shravishta) is 23 20 Capricorn. Calculating the precession accordingly, this is obviously a date of around 1560 BCE.
There are yet earlier references in the Vedas like Atharva Veda XIX.6.2 that starts the Nakshatras with Krittika (the Pleiades) and places the summer solstice (ayana) in Magha (00, 13 20 Leo), showing a date before 1900 BCE. Clearly the Vedas show the mathematics for an early date for the zodiac as well as the precessional points of these eras long before the Babylonians or the Greeks supposedly gave them the zodiac.
Conclusion
It is not surprising that India could have invented the zodiac and circle of 360 degrees. After all, the decimal system and the use of zero , Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus etc have all come from India. In this regard, as early as the Yajur Veda, we find names for numbers starting with one, ten, one hundred and one thousand ending with one followed by twelve zeros (Shukla Yajur Veda XVII.2).
Sources
In search of the cradle of Civilization -By David Frawley and Subash Kak
Astronomical code of the Rig Veda By Subash S Kak
Vedic Origins of the Zodiac: By David Frawley
And you have the nerve to try and pass religious texts written after the Sumerians where gone as evidence that they Indians invented stuff 2000!!! Years before the Sumerians as if I wasn't going to find out when they were written and that they were religious texts containing nothing of what you have claimed? That is insulting.
I had told him that Modern Trigonometry ( and I mean strictly Modern) began when the sine and cosine functions were defined and their tables formulated around 480 AD by Aryabhatta and his immediate predecessors .But he insisted that " Modern" trigonometry began with the Sumerians , having come to learn that Claudius Ptolemy and Hipparchus are Eurocentric constructs .
But this post , I hope, will change his opinion.
Two things failed to escape me in reading his statement. One is the stereotypical attitude he has ( just as almost everyone else here might have) about the Vedic literature. I am sure he has not read a single page of the near 5000 printed pages equivalent . Yet he is absolutely certain that they are a total waste being , in his words, religious texts. The second is his use of a wrong term " Sumerians" when he should have actually said "Babylonians".
I am well aware of the lack of knowledge of of the majority of mankind about the literary, philosophical and astronomical merits of the Rig Veda and the foremost position it holds in the history of intellectual and scientific thought.
Now I am aware well enough that the few of you who have heard of the Vedas have been led by the colonial version of history to say " Vedas were written around 1500 BC"[/color]
That is a silly, downright disgusting and unforgivable lie. That was a theory based on another theory which itself was based on another unproven theory. . The Rig Veda is a purely neolithic creation dating between 5000 and 3500 BC.
I will surely yield another post in which I will sufficiently provide the archaeological, literary, astronomical and geological evidence that will prove the true antiquity of the Rig veda.
For those of you who would rather investigate it on their own, here is an unchallenged and rigorous paper by Nicholas Kazanas---
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/rie.pdf
But this post has absolutely no requirement of proving the actual date of the Rig Veda. Even using the date of 1500 BC, though it is extremely incorrect, Babylonians can be defeated as far as the 360 degrees are concerned. So the above little discussion was just to prepare the milieu for the said issue that shall be dealt with in the near future, if indeed anyone expresses their interest, for I have seen the futility of discussions that fail to summon engrossed audience.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------xxxxxxxx-------------------------------------------------------------
" Sumerians founded Trigonometry " is Ghostys assertion.
Some of us may know what he tries to mean by it. He means that the Babylonians were the first to discover the Zodiac and the circle of 360 degrees around 700 BC.
But is it true ?
No. Not in any extant way
For it can be shown in the Rig Veda just as it is fairly easy to show how Vedic astronomy influenced Babylon and through it Greece.
I can even give the name of the man who discovered the 360 degrees. He was Dirgatamas , one of the 321 men and women who contributed to composing the Rig Veda.
Some scholars have claimed that the Babylonians invented the zodiac of 360 degrees around 700 BCE, perhaps even earlier. Many claim that India received the knowledge of the zodiac from Babylonia or even later from Greece. However, as old as the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, there are clear references to a chakra or wheel of 360 spokes placed in the sky. The number 360 and its related numbers like 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 108, 432 and 720 occur commonly in Vedic symbolism. It is in the hymns of the great Rishi Dirghatamas (RV I.140, 164) that we have the clearest such references.
Dirghatamas is one of the most famous Rig Vedic Rishis. He was the reputed purohit or chief priest of King Bharata (Aitareya Brahmana VIII.23), one of the earliest kings of the land, from which India as Bharata (the traditional name of the country) was named. Dirghatamas was one of the Angirasa Rishis, the oldest of the Rishi families, and regarded as brother to the Rishi Bharadvaja, who is the seer of the sixth book of the Rig Veda. Dirghatamas is also the chief predecessor of the Gotama family of Rishis that includes Kakshivan, Gotama, Nodhas and Vamadeva (seer of the fourth book of the Rig Veda), who along with Dirghatamas account for almost 150 of the 1000 hymns of the Rig Veda. His own verses occur frequently in many Vedic texts, a few even in the Upanishads.
Salutations to Dirgatamas
The hymns of Dirghatamas speak clearly of a zodiac of 360 degrees, divided in various ways, including by three, six and twelve, as well as related numbers of five and seven. We must remember that the zodiac is first of all a mathematical division of the heavens such as this hymn outlines. This is defined mainly according to the elements, qualities and planetary rulerships of the twelve signs. The symbols we ascribe to these twelve divisions is a different factor that can vary to some degree. The actual stars making up the constellation that goes along with the sign is yet a third factor. For example, some constellations are less or more than thirty degrees, but the mathematical or harmonic division of each sign will only be thirty degrees. What is important about the hymns of Dirghatamas is that he shows the mathematical basis of such harmonic divisions of a zodiac of 360 degrees.
For Dirghatamas, as was the case for much of later Vedic astronomy, the main God of the zodiac is the Sun God called Vishnu. Vishnu rules over the highest heaven and is sometimes identified with the pole star or polar point, which in the unique view of Vedic astronomy is the central point that governs all celestial motions and form which these are calculated.
According to Dirghatamas Rig Veda I.155.6, "With four times ninety names (caturbhih sakam navatim ca namabhih), he (Vishnu) sets in motion moving forces like a turning wheel (cakra)." This suggests that even in Vedic times Vishnu had 360 names or forms, one for each degree of the zodiac. A fourfold division may correspond to the solstices and equinoxes. Elsewhere Dirghatamas states, I.164.36, "Seven half embryos form the seed of the world. They stand in the dharma by the direction of Vishnu." This probably refers to the seven planets.
We should note that the zodiac of twelve signs is divided into three sections based upon a similar understanding, starting with Aries or fire (cardinal fire ruled by Mars, who in Vedic thought is the fire born of the Earth), then with Leo or the Sun (fixed fire ruled by the Sun), and then with Sagittarius, the atmospheric fire, lightning or wind (mutable fire ruled by Jupiter, the God of the rains).
Seven yoke the chariot that has a single wheel (chakra). One horse that has seven names carries it. The wheel has three naves, is undecaying and never overcome, where all these beings are placed.
RV I. 164. 2
The zodiac is the single wheeled-chariot or circle yoked by the seven planets which are all forms of the Sun or sunlight. It is the wheel of time on which all beings are placed. The Vedic horse (ashva) is symbolic of energy or propulsive force.
11. The wheel of law with twelve spokes does not decay as it revolves around heaven. Oh Fire, here your 720 sons abide.
RV I.164.11
The circle of the zodiac has twelve signs. It has 720 half degrees or twins, making 360 total. The Shatapatha Brahmana X.5.5, a late Vedic text, also speaks of a wheel of heaven with 720 divisions. "But indeed that Fire-altar is also the Nakshatras. For there are twenty seven of these Nakshatras and twenty-seven secondary Nakshatras. This makes 720." Twenty-seven times twenty-seven Nakshatras equals 729, with which some overlap can be related to the 720 half-degrees of the zodiac.
The sevenfold wheel is the zodiac moved by the seven planets. The six spokes are the six double signs through which the planets travel. The same verse occurs in the Prashna Upanishad I.11 as a symbol for the year.
13. Revolving on this five-spoked wheel all beings stand. Though it carries a heavy load, its axle does not over heat. From of old it does not break its ancient laws.
RV I.164 .13
The five-spoked wheel is again the zodiac ruled by five planets and five elements and their various internal and external correspondences.
The planets are often associated with the rishis in Vedic thought, particularly the rishis Brihaspati (Jupiter), Shukra (Venus) and Kashyapa (the Sun) which became common names for the planets. Their ordainer or stabilizer may be the pole star (polar point).
Twelve are its fellies. The wheel is one. It has three naves. Who has understood it? In It are held together like spokes the 360, both moving and non-moving.
RV I.164.48
This perhaps the clearest verse that refers to the zodiac of twelve signs and three hundred and sixty degrees. The same verse also occurs in Atharva Veda (X.8.4). The zodiac has three divisions as fire, lightning and Sun or Aries, Sagittarius and Leo that represent these three forms of fire. The 360 spokes are the 360 degrees which revolve in the sky but remain in the same place in the zodiac.
If we examine the hymn overall, we see that a heavenly circle of 360 degrees and 12 signs is known, along with 7 planets. It also has a threefold division of the signs which can be identified with that of fire, wind (lightning) and Sun (Aries, Sagittarius, Leo) and a sixfold division that can be identified with the planets each ruling two signs of the zodiac. This provides the basis for the main factors of the zodiac and signs as we have known them historically. We have all the main factors for the traditional signs of the zodiac except the names and symbols of each individual sign.
The zodiac in Vedic thought is the wheel of the Sun. It is the circle created by the Sun's rays.
,
"But, indeed, the Fire-altar also is the Sun. The regions are its enclosing stones, and there are 360 of these, because 360 regions encircle the Sun on all sides. And 360 are the rays of the Sun."
The Shatapatha Brahmana X.5.4 ,
Yajur Veda
Western scholars of the history of astronomy like David Pingree have accepted the astronomical basis of this hymn. In an article, "Astronomy in India" in Astronomy Before the Telescope, C. Walker (ed.), St. Martin's Press, New York, 1996, pps. 123-124, Pingree suggests that Mul. Apin, Babylonian tablets that date from 687 to 500 BC has "'an ideal calendar' in which one year contains 12 months, each of which has 30 days, and consequently exactly 360 days; a late hymn of the Rgveda refers to the same 'ideal calendar'. And Mul.Apin describes the oscillation of the rising-point of the sun along the eastern horizon between its extremities when it is at the solstices; the same oscillation is described in the Aitareya Brahmana.'" This ideal calendar is the basis for the zodiac and its twelve signs at a mathematical level. Clearly Pingree is referring to Rig Veda I.164 as his 'late' hymn of the Rig Veda.
To quote from David Pingree's "History of mathematical astronomy in India," in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, C.S. Gillespie (ed.), pp. 533-633, Charles Scribners, New York, 1981, page 534: "In the case of the priority of the Rgveda to the Brahmanas, it is not always clear that the views expressed in the latter developed historically after the composition of the former. All texts that can reasonably be dated before ca. 500 BC are here considered to represent essentially a single body of more or less uniform material." The point of his statement is to try to get such Rig Veda references as those of Dirghatamas later than the Brahmana texts as both reflect a similar sophisticated astronomy, which is necessary to make it later than the Babylonian references and a product of a Babylonian influence as he proposes. This requires reducing all the layers of Vedic literature to a more or less uniform mass at a very late date, which is contrary to almost every view of the text.
Clearly this Rig Veda hymn, which has parallels and developments in the Brahmanas (like the Shatapatha Brahmana quoted in this chapter), must be earlier and show that such ideas were much older than the Brahmanas. To maintain his late date for Vedic astrology, Pingree must assume that this hymn or its particular astronomical verses were late interpolations to the Rig Veda, around 500 BCE or about the time of the Buddha. This is rather odd because the Buddha is generally regarded as having come long after the Vedic period.
Even the Brahmanas, like the Upanishads that come after them, are pre-Buddhist by all accounts. Perhaps the main Vedic ritual given in the Brahmanas, the Gavamayana, follows the model of a year of 360 days and is divided into two halves based upon the solstices, showing that such an 'ideal' calendar was central to Vedic thought. That such an ideal calendar has its counterpart in the sky is well reflected in Vedic ideas saying that equate the days and nights with the Sun's rays and with the stars (as we have noted in Shatapatha Brahmana with 720 Upanakshatras)*. The Brahmanas, we should also note, emphasize the Krittikas or the Pleiades as the first of the Nakshatras, reflecting an astronomical era of the Taurus equinox. The Shatapatha Brahmana notes that the Krittikas mark the eastern direction.
In addition, the hymn, its verses and commentaries on them are found in many places in Vedic literature, along with support references to Nakshatras. It cannot be reduced to a late addition but is an integral part of the text.
That being the case, a zodiac of 360 degrees and its twelvefold division are much older in India than any Greek or even Babylonian references that he has come up with.
Pingree also tries to reduce the ancient Vedic calendar work Vedanga Jyotish to 500 BCE or to a Babylonian influence. However, the internal date of this late Vedic text is of a summer solstice in Aslesha or 1300 BCE, information referenced by Varaha Mihira in his Brihat Samhita (III.1-2). "There was indeed a time when the Sun's southerly course (summer solstice) began from the middle of the Nakshatra Aslesha and the northerly one (winter solstice) from the beginning of the Nakshatra Dhanishta. For it has been stated so in ancient works. At present the southerly course of the Sun starts from the beginning of Cancer and the other from the initial point of the sign Capricorn." The middle of Aslesha is 23 20 Cancer, while the beginning of Dhanishta (Shravishta) is 23 20 Capricorn. Calculating the precession accordingly, this is obviously a date of around 1560 BCE.
There are yet earlier references in the Vedas like Atharva Veda XIX.6.2 that starts the Nakshatras with Krittika (the Pleiades) and places the summer solstice (ayana) in Magha (00, 13 20 Leo), showing a date before 1900 BCE. Clearly the Vedas show the mathematics for an early date for the zodiac as well as the precessional points of these eras long before the Babylonians or the Greeks supposedly gave them the zodiac.
Conclusion
It is not surprising that India could have invented the zodiac and circle of 360 degrees. After all, the decimal system and the use of zero , Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus etc have all come from India. In this regard, as early as the Yajur Veda, we find names for numbers starting with one, ten, one hundred and one thousand ending with one followed by twelve zeros (Shukla Yajur Veda XVII.2).
Sources
In search of the cradle of Civilization -By David Frawley and Subash Kak
Astronomical code of the Rig Veda By Subash S Kak
Vedic Origins of the Zodiac: By David Frawley