Ancient Indian wisdom-THE SPEED OF LIGHT
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.
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