Short answer
No. The famous claims do not come from the words of the Vedas. The "speed of light" is a number in a 14th-century commentary, and the verse itself gives no number. The "Vedic aeroplanes" come from a text made in the early 1900s. Engineers at the Indian Institute of Science found that none of its planes could fly. The rules of "Vedic Mathematics" are not in the known texts, as its own editor said. India's real mathematicians, such as Aryabhata, deserve honour, but their work is their own. Test the hymns as this site tests the Qur'an, by their plain words. They teach no such science, and one hymn blames a demon for an eclipse. The Qur'an is not a science book either. But it repeats no such error, and it points to the one God (﷾).
| Claim | Where it comes from | When | What was found |
|---|---|---|---|
| The speed of light | A remembered saying in Sayana's commentary, not the verse | 14th century | It speaks to the sun, and it matches only with one pairing of units |
| Vedic aeroplanes | The Vaimanika Shastra, spoken by Pandit Subbaraya Shastry | Between 1900 and 1922 | None of the planes could fly |
| Vedic Mathematics | A book by Bharati Krishna Tirtha | 1965 | Its rules do not appear in the known appendices of the Atharva Veda |
| Time scales | Manu and later books, which are smriti | After the hymns | Sagan said the match is no doubt by accident |
Full explanation
One test for every scripture
Many Hindus have heard that the Vedas hold all of modern science. This site makes a much smaller claim for the Qur'an, and it says how that claim is tested. So the same three questions apply here. First, does the claim come from the text's own words, or from something written later? Second, does it work without choosing the numbers after the answer is known? Third, is the text free of the errors of its age? The Qur'an faces this test first. It says that if it came from anyone but Allah (﷾), people would find much discrepancy in it. It also tells people not to follow what they do not know. So this test is not aimed at Hindus, and the answer below can be checked by anyone.
“Do they not consider the Qur'an (with care)? Had it been from other Than Allah, they would surely have found therein Much discrepancy.”
“And pursue not that of which thou hast no knowledge; for every act of hearing, or of seeing or of (feeling in) the heart will be enquired into (on the Day of Reckoning).”
Does it come from the text's own words?
Or from something written later?
Does it work without choosing the numbers afterwards?
Is the text free of the errors of its age?
Where the belief comes from
The Hindu scriptures come in layers. Shruti (what was heard) means the Vedas: the hymns, the Brahmanas (ritual books) and the Upanishads. Smriti (what was remembered) means later books such as Manu, the epics and the Puranas. Manu, a law book of the second layer, says the past, the present and the future are all known through the Veda. In the 19th century the reformer Dayananda read some Vedic verses as speaking of aircraft. If the Veda holds all knowledge, every new discovery must already be inside it. So the search starts from the answer and then goes looking for a verse. That is why the three famous claims deserve a close look.
“The four castes, the three worlds, the four orders, the past, the present, and the future are all severally known by means of the Veda.”
Aeronautical and mechanical engineers review the text. It is written as the work of the sage Bharadwaja, but they trace it to Pandit Subbaraya Shastry, who spoke the verses when inspired while G. V. Sharma took them down. They find its Sanskrit modern, one transcript dated 1919, and conclude it cannot be earlier than 1904 and came into being between 1900 and 1922. They rule out fraud by Shastry, whom they describe as simple and humble. They say: "None of the planes has properties or capabilities of being flown", and that the means of propulsion resist rather than help flying. Models made under his guidance did not fly. The drawings show knowledge of modern machinery; the draughtsman worked at a local engineering college. The Vedic verses that Dayananda (commentary of 1878 or earlier) read as aircraft are, they say, too vague to show such a thing, and we may be giving them meaning from what we know today. The Pushpaka of the Ramayana has no flying qualities except, possibly, by mantras.
The speed of light: a number that is not in the verse
Rig Veda 1.50 is a hymn to Surya, the sun. Verse 4 calls him swift (tarani) and maker of the light, and it gives no number. Verse 8 of the same hymn pictures seven bay steeds drawing his car. The number comes from Sayana, a scholar who died in 1387, in his comment on verse 4. He writes: thus it is remembered, O Sun, you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. So the line is addressed to the sun, and it does not mention light. Sayana quotes it as a remembered saying, not as Veda. An older commentator gives the same line and calls it an old Puranic tradition. So this claim fails the first question. The verse has no speed in it, and the number appears only in commentaries written long after the hymns.
“Swift and all beautiful art thou, O Sûrya, maker of the light, Illuming all the radiant realm.”
“Seven Bay Steeds harnessed to thy car bear thee, O thou far-seeing One, God, Sûrya, with the radiant hair.”
Gives Sayana's line (c. 1315-1387) on Rig Veda 1.50.4 as: thus it is remembered, O Sun, you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. The same line is in Bhatta Bhaskara's commentary on the Taittiriya Brahmana, where it is called an old Puranic tradition. Kak takes the usual yojana as about 9 miles (the Arthashastra), says Aryabhata's yojana is about 7.5 miles, and finds the Puranas' own yojana to be about one thirty-sixth of the usual one. With 15 nimeshas to a kashtha, a nimesha is 16/75 of a second. He says the speed of light was determined only in 1675 and that there is no record of optical experiments in India before the modern period. His answer is that the figure was a speed set for light so that it could cross a supposed size of the universe in one day. He calls the value "an amazing coincidence", a lucky chance and a "blind hit".
The match depends on which units you pick
A yojana is an old measure of distance and a nimesha is a blink. Neither had one fixed size. The Vishnu Purana counts 15 nimeshas to a kashtha (a small unit of time), and Manu counts 18. In the Arthashastra, an ancient Indian book on government, a yojana is about 9 miles (14.5 km). Aryabhata's is about 7.5 miles (12 km). The Surya Siddhanta makes the earth 1,600 yojanas across, so its yojana is about 8 km. One scholar works out the Puranas' own yojana at about one thirty-sixth of the usual one. Put these into the same line and it gives anything from about 8,300 to about 360,000 km a second. Aryabhata's yojana gives about 250,000. The Arthashastra's gives about 300,000 with the Puranas' blink, and about 360,000 with Manu's. Only one pairing lands near the true figure of 299,792 km a second. It takes the yojana from the Arthashastra and the blink from the Puranas, and it was made in modern books, after the true speed was known. That same scholar argues for the depth of early Indian astronomy. Yet he traces the figure to a supposed size of the universe, not to a measurement. He calls the match a coincidence and a blind hit. He notes that no experiment to measure light is recorded in India before modern times. So the claim fails the second question too.
“Fifteen twinklings of the eye (Nimeshas) make a Káshthá; thirty Káshthás, a Kalá; thirty Kalás, a Muhúrtta (forty-eight minutes); and thirty Muhúrttas, a day and night”
“Eighteen nimeshas (twinklings of the eye, are one kâshthâ), thirty kâshthâs one kalâ, thirty kalâs one muhûrta, and as many (muhûrtas) one day and night.”
“Twice eight hundred yojanas are the diameter of the earth”
Earth has an equatorial diameter of 7,926 miles (12,756 kilometres).
Gives Sayana's line (c. 1315-1387) on Rig Veda 1.50.4 as: thus it is remembered, O Sun, you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. The same line is in Bhatta Bhaskara's commentary on the Taittiriya Brahmana, where it is called an old Puranic tradition. Kak takes the usual yojana as about 9 miles (the Arthashastra), says Aryabhata's yojana is about 7.5 miles, and finds the Puranas' own yojana to be about one thirty-sixth of the usual one. With 15 nimeshas to a kashtha, a nimesha is 16/75 of a second. He says the speed of light was determined only in 1675 and that there is no record of optical experiments in India before the modern period. His answer is that the figure was a speed set for light so that it could cross a supposed size of the universe in one day. He calls the value "an amazing coincidence", a lucky chance and a "blind hit".
The speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second.
The aeroplanes: a text from the twentieth century
The Vaimanika Shastra, also spelled Vymanika Shastra, is said to be the work of the ancient sage Bharadwaja. In 1974 engineers at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore studied it. They traced it to Pandit Subbaraya Shastry, who spoke the verses when inspired while a friend took them down. Its Sanskrit is modern, and they concluded it came into being between 1900 and 1922. They did not call him a fraud. They described a simple and humble man. But they found that none of the planes could fly, and that their means of propulsion would work against flying. Models made under his guidance did not fly. The drawings show modern machinery, and the draughtsman worked at an engineering college. So this text is not in the Vedas, and it is not ancient. It tells us about the early twentieth century, not about the Vedic age.
Aeronautical and mechanical engineers review the text. It is written as the work of the sage Bharadwaja, but they trace it to Pandit Subbaraya Shastry, who spoke the verses when inspired while G. V. Sharma took them down. They find its Sanskrit modern, one transcript dated 1919, and conclude it cannot be earlier than 1904 and came into being between 1900 and 1922. They rule out fraud by Shastry, whom they describe as simple and humble. They say: "None of the planes has properties or capabilities of being flown", and that the means of propulsion resist rather than help flying. Models made under his guidance did not fly. The drawings show knowledge of modern machinery; the draughtsman worked at a local engineering college. The Vedic verses that Dayananda (commentary of 1878 or earlier) read as aircraft are, they say, too vague to show such a thing, and we may be giving them meaning from what we know today. The Pushpaka of the Ramayana has no flying qualities except, possibly, by mantras.
Vedic Mathematics: rules not in the known texts
Vedic Mathematics was published in 1965, after its writer had died. He was Bharati Krishna Tirtha, the Shankaracharya of Puri and a senior Hindu teacher. He said its sixteen short rules (sutras) were part of an appendix to the Atharva Veda, the fourth Veda. His own editor called the book the result of eight years of concentrated thought by Tirtha. The editor asked whether the rules exist anywhere in the Vedic literature as known to us. He wrote that they do not appear in the appendices known to scholars, and that their language points to Tirtha himself. He also said Tirtha's approach took the Vedas as they should be, not as they are in human hands. A mathematician who studied the book found that it has practically nothing in common with the mathematics of the Vedic period. Its first chapter depends on decimal fractions, which appear neither in the Vedic works nor in Aryabhata or Brahmagupta. He called the methods tricks, and he granted that making them was no small task. So the credit belongs to a modern man, and the title claims an origin the book cannot show. The editor's words show the same pattern as before: the conclusion came first.
The foreword to the book by Bharati Krishna Tirtha of Govardhana Matha, Puri (1884-1960), calls it the result of eight years of highly concentrated mental endeavour by its author. It asks whether the sutras exist anywhere in the Vedic literature as known to us. It answers that Tirtha's approach took the Vedas as they should be, the repository of all knowledge, and not what they are in human possession. Tirtha said the sixteen sutras form part of a Parisista (appendix) of the Atharva Veda. The editor says they "do not appear in the hitherto known" Parisistas, that the style of language points to their discovery by Tirtha himself, and that the work deserves to be regarded as a new Parisista by itself.
A mathematician of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research says the book has practically nothing in common with what is known of the mathematics of the Vedic period, or with the later Indian tradition until modern times. Its first chapter depends on decimal fractions, which appear nowhere in the Shulvasutras, the earlier Vedic works, Aryabhata, Brahmagupta or Bhaskara. He calls its contents tricks, and he says that producing them was no small task. He also says the Shulvasutras contain the theorem now called Pythagoras' in its earliest known general statement.
India's real mathematics has real names
India's mathematics needs no borrowed fame. The Sulbasutras are appendices to the Vedas, and the oldest dates from about 800 BC. They give exact rules for building altars. They state the rule about the diagonal now named after Pythagoras, and a close value for the square root of 2. The Babylonians knew that rule centuries earlier. So this is real geometry and the skill of builders, not modern science or a sign of revelation. Aryabhata finished his book in 499. He gave pi as 3.1416, said the earth spins, and explained eclipses correctly. Brahmagupta, in 628, gave rules for zero and for negative numbers. The place-value numbers now used everywhere came from India. Muslims learned them and passed them on. Al-Khwarizmi (about 780 to 850), a Muslim scholar of Baghdad, wrote the book known as the Hindu Art of Reckoning. So honour the people who did this work. Calling their achievements Vedic takes the credit from them and gives it to verses that do not contain it.
The Sulbasutras are appendices to the Vedas giving rules for building altars, which had to have very exact measurements. The Baudhayana Sulbasutra is dated about 800 BC. It says the rope stretched across the diagonal of a square produces an area double the square. The Apastamba Sulbasutra, about 600 BC, gives a rule for the square root of 2 correct to five decimal places.
A mathematician of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research says the book has practically nothing in common with what is known of the mathematics of the Vedic period, or with the later Indian tradition until modern times. Its first chapter depends on decimal fractions, which appear nowhere in the Shulvasutras, the earlier Vedic works, Aryabhata, Brahmagupta or Bhaskara. He calls its contents tricks, and he says that producing them was no small task. He also says the Shulvasutras contain the theorem now called Pythagoras' in its earliest known general statement.
The Babylonians were familiar with the theorem now named after Pythagoras. The tablets studied come from the Old Babylonian Empire, 1900 to 1600 BC.
Aryabhata (476-550) finished the Aryabhatiya in 499. His rule gives pi as 3.1416. He held that the sky's daily motion comes from the earth spinning on its axis, a view later commentators often rejected. He correctly explained the causes of eclipses of the sun and moon, which earlier belief put down to the demon Rahu.
Brahmagupta (598-670) wrote the Brahmasphutasiddhanta in 628. He defined zero as a number subtracted from itself, and gave rules for working with zero and with negative numbers, which he called debts.
Al-Khwarizmi lived from about 780 to about 850 and was a scholar at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad under the Caliph al-Ma'mun. His book on arithmetic survives only in a Latin version, known as "Al-Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning", which sets out the Hindu place-value system of numbers. The pious preface to his Algebra shows that he was an orthodox Muslim.
- From about 800 BC
The Sulbasutras
Exact rules for building altars, with the rule about the diagonal.
- 499
Aryabhata
Pi as 3.1416, a spinning earth, and the true causes of eclipses.
- 628
Brahmagupta
Rules for zero and for negative numbers.
- About 780 to 850
Al-Khwarizmi
A Muslim scholar of Baghdad sets out the Hindu place-value numbers.
The great numbers of time
Hindus often quote Carl Sagan, the American astronomer. He said Hinduism is the only religion whose time scales match modern cosmology. But he also said the match is no doubt by accident. The figures are in Manu, which is smriti, and in the later books. Manu counts a thousand ages of the gods as one day of Brahman, and the same again as his night. By the usual count a day comes to 4.32 billion years. A number of the right size is not a discovery. The size may be close, but the claim is different. Manu says the creations and destructions of the world are numberless, repeated again and again. An endless chain of worlds still explains nothing, as the site's page on why there is something rather than nothing shows. And physicists have shown that a universe which has, on average, been expanding cannot have been doing so for ever. So this claim fails the first question as well, and its endless round is not what science has found.
Says Hinduism is the only great faith built on the idea that the cosmos passes through endless deaths and rebirths, and the only religion whose time scales match those of modern cosmology, adding that this is no doubt by accident. He gives a day and night of Brahma as 8.64 billion years, about half the time since the Big Bang.
“These twelve thousand (years) which thus have been just mentioned as the total of four (human) ages, are called one age of the gods. But know that the sum of one thousand ages of the gods (makes) one day of Brahman, and that his night has the same length.”
“The Manvantaras, the creations and destructions (of the world, are) numberless; sporting, as it were, Brahman repeats this again and again.”
Shows that a universe which has, on average, been expanding cannot have been expanding for ever: its expanding history must have a boundary in the past.
What the hymns themselves say
The third question looks at the hymns' own words about the sky. Rig Veda 5.40 describes an eclipse of the sun. Svarbhanu, one of the Asuras (demons), pierces the sun with darkness, and all creatures are bewildered. Then the priest Atri sets the press-stones (used for the ritual drink), serves the gods with praise, and sets the sun back in the heaven. No one else, the hymn says, had the power to do this. Griffith, its translator, notes that Svarbhanu is the demon who causes eclipses, the Rahu of later times. In fact the moon passes in front of the sun, and the eclipse ends by itself, on a day that can be worked out in advance. So this Vedic account of an eclipse gives the wrong cause. The creation hymn, Rig Veda 10.129, makes no claim to knowledge at all: it ends by asking who knows. These hymns are prayers and praise, and they should be read as that. Where the later Puranas go further and give measurements, the site's page on them shows the result.
“O Sûrya, when the Asura's descendant, Svarbhânu, pierced thee through and through with darkness, All creatures looked like one who is bewildered, who knoweth not the place where he is standing.”
“The Brahman Atri, as he set the press-stones, serving the Gods with praise and adoration, Established in the heaven the eye of Sûrya, and caused Svarbhânu's magic arts to vanish. The Atris found the Sun again, him whom Svarbhânu of the brood Of Asuras had pierced with gloom. This none besides had power to do.”
“Svarbhânu: the Asura or demon who causes eclipses of the sun and moon, the Râhu of later times.”
“Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?”
The Moon is an average of 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometres) from the Earth. The Sun, the solar system's only star, is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometres) from the Earth, so it is about 390 times farther away than the Moon.
The same test, applied to the Qur'an
The Qur'an is not a science textbook, and this site says so. It calls the things of creation signs. Its claim about nature is narrow. Its own words on many subjects hold true, and it repeats none of the errors of its age named on the site's pages. It gives no distance and no order for the sun and the moon. It says only that each swims along in its own orbit. On an eclipse the contrast is plain. When the sun was eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, people said it was for his death. A false prophet could have used that moment. The Prophet (ﷺ) told them instead that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for the death or the birth of anyone. He told them to pray and call on Allah (﷾). All this came through a man who could not read. This site also tells Muslims not to build their case on contested readings that match verses to modern science. The talk would turn to the science instead of to God (﷾).
“Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day,- there are indeed Signs for men of understanding,- Men who celebrate the praises of Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the (wonders of) creation in the heavens and the earth, (With the thought): "Our Lord! not for naught Hast Thou created (all) this! Glory to Thee! Give us salvation from the penalty of the Fire.”
“It is not permitted to the Sun to catch up the Moon, nor can the Night outstrip the Day: Each (just) swims along in (its own) orbit (according to Law).”
Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba reports that the sun eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, and people said it had eclipsed because of Ibrahim's death. The Prophet said that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for the death or the birth of anyone, and told them to pray and call on Allah when they see an eclipse.
“And thou wast not (able) to recite a Book before this (Book came), nor art thou (able) to transcribe it with thy right hand: In that case, indeed, would the talkers of vanities have doubted.”
Distinguishes modest concordism, on which scripture can be reconciled with accurate science, from bold concordism, on which scripture teaches science in a positive way that interpreters can recover. Warns that using concordism in religious outreach can backfire, since changes in scientific belief can make the proofs built on it fall away.
| Question | The claims made for the Vedas | This site's claim for the Qur'an |
|---|---|---|
| From the text's own words | ||
| No numbers chosen afterwards | ||
| Free of the errors of its age named here |
- Yes
- No
The question that matters more
A scripture does not have to teach physics. It has to be true in what it says, and it has to tell people who made them and what He asks of them. On that, the Qur'an is plain. Allah (﷾) is One, He begets not and is not begotten, and there is none like Him. The highest passages of the Hindu scriptures speak of one Lord without equal, as the site's page on them shows. The Qur'an teaches that plainly, in words that have not changed, and it asks that He alone be worshipped. It also promises that His signs will go on being shown, in the world and in people themselves, until the truth is clear. So the honest step is to leave the claims about aeroplanes behind and read the Qur'an itself.
“Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.”
“Soon will We show them our Signs in the (furthest) regions (of the earth), and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the Truth. Is it not enough that thy Lord doth witness all things?”
The replies, answered
Qur'an 78:6-7 — Surat al-Naba (The Announcement), verses 6-7
“Have We not made the earth as a wide expanse, And the mountains as pegs?”
Cited for
This is a double standard. Muslims claim science in the Qur'an too. You mock Vedic science and then do the same thing.
The response
The test is stated, and the Qur'an faces it first. This site claims no hidden physics in the Qur'an. Its page on the subject says no single verse proves anything on its own. It says the verses on the heavens do not teach the Big Bang; they are consistent with what was found later. It sets the early scholars' reading of each verse beside the modern one. It rests on words that are in the verse itself, such as the word for pegs, not on a commentary written centuries later. It rests on no figure that works in only one choice of units. Where anyone stretches a verse or juggles numbers to reach a modern finding, the same test rejects it, whoever does it. The site's own page warns Muslims against bold matching of verses to science. The claim that remains is narrow. Plain words hold true on several subjects at once. None of the errors of the age named on those pages is repeated. And it all came through a man who could not read.
Where it lands — One test applies to both books. It is the same three questions, and the Qur'an is held to them first.
MacTutor History of Mathematics, Aryabhata
Aryabhata (476-550) finished the Aryabhatiya in 499. His rule gives pi as 3.1416. He held that the sky's daily motion comes from the earth spinning on its axis, a view later commentators often rejected. He correctly explained the causes of eclipses of the sun and moon, which earlier belief put down to the demon Rahu.
Cited for
India gave the world zero and the decimal system. Denying Vedic science denies India's genius.
The response
India's mathematics is real, and this page honours it. Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and the builders of the Sulbasutras did that work, with their own names and dates. Muslims learned from it, and al-Khwarizmi passed it on. But those achievements are not claims of the Vedic hymns. Aryabhata's book is from 499, more than a thousand years after the hymns. He explained eclipses correctly at a time when older belief blamed a demon. Brahmagupta, more than a century later, defended the Head (Rahu) in the name of the Veda, though he worked out eclipses from the shadows himself.
Where it lands — The genius was in Indian scholars, not hidden in the hymns. Honouring them means giving them the credit.
Kak, "The Speed of Light and Puranic Cosmology" (1999)
Gives Sayana's line (c. 1315-1387) on Rig Veda 1.50.4 as: thus it is remembered, O Sun, you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha. The same line is in Bhatta Bhaskara's commentary on the Taittiriya Brahmana, where it is called an old Puranic tradition. Kak takes the usual yojana as about 9 miles (the Arthashastra), says Aryabhata's yojana is about 7.5 miles, and finds the Puranas' own yojana to be about one thirty-sixth of the usual one. With 15 nimeshas to a kashtha, a nimesha is 16/75 of a second. He says the speed of light was determined only in 1675 and that there is no record of optical experiments in India before the modern period. His answer is that the figure was a speed set for light so that it could cross a supposed size of the universe in one day. He calls the value "an amazing coincidence", a lucky chance and a "blind hit".
Cited for
The figure cannot be the sun's own speed, so it must be the speed of light. A match this close is not chance.
The response
A number that fails for the sun does not become light's speed by default. The line itself speaks to the sun, and nothing in it says light. Even the scholar who reads it as a speed for light traces it to a supposed size of the universe, not to a measurement. And the closeness is made by the choice of units. Change the nimesha to Manu's, and the same line gives about 360,000 km a second. Use the Surya Siddhanta's yojana, and it gives about 165,000. Use the yojana the scholar finds in the Puranas, the line's own tradition, and it gives about 8,300. Out of many old sums, a few will land near almost any modern figure. And no one in India is recorded as measuring the speed of light before modern times.
Where it lands — The match appears only after the units are chosen. The scholar who studied it calls it a coincidence.
Rig Veda 5.40.5 — Mandala 5, Hymn 40, verse 5
“O Sûrya, when the Asura's descendant, Svarbhânu, pierced thee through and through with darkness, All creatures looked like one who is bewildered, who knoweth not the place where he is standing.”
Cited for
Hymn 5.40 is poetry. Svarbhanu is a picture of darkness, not a theory. The Qur'an speaks in pictures too.
The response
The Qur'an does speak in pictures, so the test is the same for both: does the picture fit the world? Pegs fit what lies beneath mountains. A being who pierces the sun, and a priest whose praise sets it back, do not fit an eclipse. The moon passes and moves on, whatever anyone does. And the tradition did not always read this as poetry. Brahmagupta said the Veda itself teaches that the Head eclipses. Besides, a reader who calls the hymn poetry has also given up the claim that it holds science.
Where it lands — If the hymn is a poem, it teaches no science. If it teaches anything about eclipses, it gives the wrong cause.
Aitareya Brahmana 3.44 — book 3, section 44
“The sun does never set nor rise. When people think the sun is setting (it is not so). For after having arrived at the end of the day it makes itself produce two opposite effects, making night to what is below and day to what is on the other side.”
Cited for
The Aitareya Brahmana says the sun never sets or rises. So the Veda knew the earth turns, long before Copernicus.
The response
It is a striking line, so read on. After saying this, the text says the sun makes itself produce two opposite effects, night in one place and day in another. The action is the sun's, and the earth is not said to move. Haug, its translator, says the writer gives the sun a daily course and keeps it high in the sky. That is an early attempt at a puzzle, in a book of ritual. The man who did say the earth spins was Aryabhata, in his own book, and later commentators often rejected him.
Where it lands — The passage moves the sun, not the earth. The idea of a spinning earth came later, from Aryabhata.
Sagan, Cosmos (1980), on Hindu time scales
Says Hinduism is the only great faith built on the idea that the cosmos passes through endless deaths and rebirths, and the only religion whose time scales match those of modern cosmology, adding that this is no doubt by accident. He gives a day and night of Brahma as 8.64 billion years, about half the time since the Big Bang.
Cited for
Carl Sagan, a famous astronomer, said Hindu time scales match modern cosmology. How could the sages have known?
The response
Sagan answered that himself: he said the match is no doubt by accident. He was comparing sizes, not findings. The figures are in Manu and the later books, so this is not a claim about the hymns. Manu says the world's creations and destructions are numberless. That is a belief about endless rounds, not a measurement of the universe. An endless chain explains nothing, and physicists have shown that an expanding universe has a limit in the past.
Where it lands — The witness Hindus quote called the match an accident. A similar size is not a discovery.
Mukunda and others, "A Critical Study of the Work 'Vymanika Shastra'" (1974)
Aeronautical and mechanical engineers review the text. It is written as the work of the sage Bharadwaja, but they trace it to Pandit Subbaraya Shastry, who spoke the verses when inspired while G. V. Sharma took them down. They find its Sanskrit modern, one transcript dated 1919, and conclude it cannot be earlier than 1904 and came into being between 1900 and 1922. They rule out fraud by Shastry, whom they describe as simple and humble. They say: "None of the planes has properties or capabilities of being flown", and that the means of propulsion resist rather than help flying. Models made under his guidance did not fly. The drawings show knowledge of modern machinery; the draughtsman worked at a local engineering college. The Vedic verses that Dayananda (commentary of 1878 or earlier) read as aircraft are, they say, too vague to show such a thing, and we may be giving them meaning from what we know today. The Pushpaka of the Ramayana has no flying qualities except, possibly, by mantras.
Cited for
Forget that one book. The Ramayana itself describes the Pushpaka, a flying chariot, so flight was known in ancient India.
The response
A story of a flying chariot gives no design, no engine and no way to build one. The Indian Institute of Science engineers looked at this too. They said that as the Ramayana describes it, the Pushpaka has no flying qualities except possibly by mantras. So it is told as a wonder, not as engineering. A wonder in a story makes no claim about science, whatever one believes about the story.
Where it lands — A wonder in a story is not technology, so it does not show that the Vedas or the epics held modern science.
Perspectives
The Veda holds all knowledge
The Veda is the root of all knowledge. Manu says everything is known through it. So it is no surprise that modern science finds its findings there, whether in Sayana's number or in works handed down from the sages.
Manu says the past, the present and the future are all known through the Veda.
Rebuttal
That is a claim about the Veda, made by a later law book. It shows what was believed, not what the hymns contain. Each of these discoveries was made by others first, and only then looked for in the Veda. The editor of Vedic Mathematics described that approach himself: taking the Vedas as they should be, not as they are in human hands.
Sayana's line, read with the usual units, gives very nearly the speed of light, centuries before it was measured.
Rebuttal
The line speaks to the sun and does not mention light. It gives nearly the right figure only with one choice of yojana and one of nimesha, picked after the answer is known. Other old measures give about 8,300 to 360,000 km a second. The scholar who studied it most closely calls the match a coincidence.
Most branches of the Veda are lost, so the science may have been in the parts we no longer have.
Rebuttal
A book no one can read cannot be evidence for anything. It would be the same answer for any claim at all. The Qur'an tells people not to follow what they do not know. And if the texts that held the knowledge were lost, the Vedas we have cannot be said to contain it.
The science is there in hidden form
The rishis (seers) spoke in symbols. A reader who knows the science can now see what the hymns meant. The bands that hold the earth are gravity. The Brahmana's saying that the sun never sets is the turning earth.
The Aitareya Brahmana says the sun never sets or rises, so it knew that sunset is not the sun's own doing.
Rebuttal
The passage gives the action to the sun: it makes night on one side and day on the other. It never says the earth turns. Its translator says the text gives the sun a daily course and keeps it high in the sky.
Rig Veda 10.149 says Savitar fixed the earth with bands and made heaven firm with no prop, which points to gravity.
Rebuttal
The verse names a god and bands, and it gives no law, no measure and no prediction. At most it is a picture that does not clash with gravity, and a picture that fits is not a discovery. This site says the same of the Qur'an's verses on the heavens: they do not teach the Big Bang. The engineers who studied the aircraft verses warned against giving old words a meaning from what we know today.
The Vedas were never meant to teach science
Many learned Hindus reject these modern claims. The Veda speaks of what the senses cannot reach. Shankara himself said a hundred sacred texts could not make fire cold. So science neither proves the Veda nor harms it.
Shankara, the 8th-century teacher of Advaita Vedanta, and many Hindus today
Shankara taught that the Veda has authority only where the senses cannot reach, and none against what they plainly show.
Rebuttal
Then this page and Shankara agree on the answer: no. By his rule the Veda has no authority on anything the eyes can check, and that covers every claim on this page. So the modern claims go against one of Hinduism's own best-known teachers. The hymn on the eclipse is no exception: by his rule its plain words cannot stand against what people see. The Qur'an speaks of the natural world as signs, and it invites people to look for discrepancy.
The Islamic perspective
The Vedas do not contain modern science. The claims come from later commentary and modern books, and the hymns' own words give the wrong cause for an eclipse. India's achievements belong to the scholars who made them. The Qur'an is no science book either, but it passes the same test, and it points people to the one God (﷾).
Rig Veda 1.50.4 gives no number. The figure of 2,202 yojanas comes from Sayana's 14th-century comment, as a remembered saying addressed to the sun.
The Vaimanika Shastra came into being between 1900 and 1922, and engineers at the Indian Institute of Science found that none of its planes could fly.
The editor of Vedic Mathematics wrote that its sutras do not appear in the known appendices of the Atharva Veda.
Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and the builders of the Sulbasutras did real work, and Muslims learned the Indian numbers and passed them on.
Rig Veda 5.40 tells of the sun pierced with darkness by Svarbhanu and set back in the heaven by Atri.
The Prophet (ﷺ) told people that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for the death or birth of anyone, on the day his own son died.
The Qur'an invites people to look for discrepancy in it, and teaches that Allah (﷾) is One, with none like Him.