Institute for Vaishnava Studies

Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy/Richard L. Thompson

The mysteries of the Fifth Canto of the Srimad- Bhagavatam have long puzzled students of Vedic cosmography and astronomy. Confronted with a description of the universe that seems much at variance with the information provided by our senses and standard astronomical calculations, foreign observers-and even Indian commentators-from the Middle Ages up to the present have concluded that the Bhagavatam's account, elaborated in other Puranas, must be mythological. On the other hand, the same persons have been much impressed with Vedic astronomical treatises, the jyotisa-sastras, which provide remarkably accurate measurements of the solar system. In Vedic Cosmography and Astromomy, Dr. Thompson shows that the Fifth Canto's cosmography and the accounts of the solar system found in the jyotisa- sastras are not contradictory, but that they in fact represent distinct yet mutually consistent ways of comprehending a universe with important features beyond the range of ordinary sense perception. solar system found in the jyotisa-sastras are not contradictory, but that they in fact represent distinct yet mutually consistent ways of comprehending a universe with important features beyond the range of ordinary sense perception.