Archeoastronomy in Ancient India

Topic: Archaeoastronomy
Course: Astronomy
The astronomy portion of ``The History of Non-Western Science’’, discussed in class as a good reference for this paper, lives here.
Choose a historical culture and research the ways that they conducted astronomy, then write a paper describing their astronomical culture and how it fits into the context of the broader circumstances of their lives, in particular into their larger intellectual tradition.
You should choose a civilization other than the ancient Greeks (since we’ve studied them) or European peoples whose astronomical knowledge is broadly part of the same intellectual tradition (i.e. 13th century Italy or France is out, but the ancient Celts or Vikings are okay.)
However, you are encouraged to use the familiar Western tradition as a point of comparison.
Your paper should be more than just a listing of facts that you discovered; we are looking for you to relate things you’ve learned and draw interesting conclusions or make interesting speculations about them. It is okay to speculate in this paper, so long as you explain why your proposals have some merit.
You might address points like:
Did they favor particular ways of understanding their world in general? Are these reflected in the way they understood the heavens?
What form do their descriptions of astronomical events and phenomena take?
In what ways was astronomy a practically-useful discipline, and in what ways was it a purely intellectual or creative endeavor?
What technology (both material and intellectual) was available, and how did that influence both their understanding of the night sky and the ways they described it?
Were they primarily an oral culture, or did they make extensive use of written records in communicating information to the next generation?
What was their understanding of mathematics (geometry, numbers, algebra)?
Did the people use instruments beyond the unaided eye to understand the sky?
How did their astronomy influence and how was it influenced by their literary or religious tradition? For instance, the Greeks named the planets after their gods, and used the story of Persephone and Hades to explain the seasons; there is cross-pollination between their mythology and their constellations. Did your chosen people name constellations or tell stories based on what they saw in the sky?
At what latitude and in what geography did they live? Is this relevant for their understanding of the sky? (People living far from the Equator experience the sky in very different ways than those close to it!)
What challenges were prominent in their lives (warfare, navigation, harsh climate, etc.)? Do any of these influence the way they conducted astronomy?
Did they observe anything particularly unusual, or discover anything that was particularly advanced for the time period?
Note: This is not a “laundry list” of points that you must address; instead, it is a list of ideas; there are certainly many more. The best papers are ones that relate multiple facets of your people’s lifestyle, culture, technology, and astronomical tradition to make a coherent narrative.