COSMOLOGY

 And Ancient Astronomy.

(BY W. P. GOODWIN.)

Astronomy originated with the ancient Greeks, and is therefore one of the oldest sciences. But, like everything else, it evolved from cruder antecedents; for abstract ideas do not appear until a very advanced stage of culture has been attained. Hence it was as symbolisms that ancient cosmologies, or theories of the universe, arose, later to appear gradually in the form of such works as the Babylonian Epic of Creation, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Hindu Puranas, and the Book of Genesis, all fruits of the growing power of analysis and reason in man as he was progressing.

Hitherto it has been assumed that each arose independently to be combined later into the several complicated systems the developments of which are still with us, but there is strong reason for a different theory. The early Greeks described the earth as a flat circular disc surrounded by an ocean ; above and resting upon it was a vault-shaped heaven, while beneath was chained the abode of the dead. Moving along fixed paths in the heavens, the sun was supposed to introduce the day, the moon and the stars the night, while these, together with the constellations, were believed to regulate the months, the seasons, and the years. The Old Testament gives a very similar account.

Both Biblical and Greek conceptions came from Babylon, where two different stories had previously arisen. One was that the earth came out of the sea—a theory inspired doubtless, by observation of the constant depositing of silt by the sea at the head of the Persian Gulf near Babylon ; the other coming from farther north, where the country is mountainous, held the world to be a huge mountain, on the top of which lived the gods. A combination of these two ideas in time produced the vault theory of both Greeks and Bible. Meanwhile India had developed two different theories similar to the Babylonian, the Vedic texts following the vault theory and the Hindu Puranas the mountain theory ; while what little is known of early Chinese cosmology presents a close parallel to the vault theory. There is, of course, a wide variation in the details of these ancient cosmologies, but C. P. S. Menon in his ingenious thesis, "Early Astronomy and Cosmology," has for the first time endeavoured to trace them all to a common source.

EARLY CALCULATIONS

The zodiacal divisions are known to have been used in very early times for the purposes of calculation. The solar zodiac was a division into 12, the lunar zodiac into 28, of the regions through which the sun, moon, and principal stars passed in their courses. Menon's theory runs as follows :—To represent the heavens, the early astrologer commenced by drawing a square and proceeded to deal with it by halving, a process still found among some primitive people, and obviously one that simple minds find the easiest and most convenient for purposes of calculation. By dividing the square in four, that is, by halving the sides, obviously the first stage in the division of space, we arrive at the four cardinal points which were known at a very early period. If the halving process is continued, that is, if each side is now divided into four, all points of division joined by lines parallel to the sides and the four squares in the centre rubbed out, 12 squares remain, forming a border around the sides of the original square. These corresponded to the 12 zodiacal divisions to one of which, according to its position in the heavens at the time, a celestial body was assigned. If the halving process is continued further, each side of the square being divided into eight instead of four, following the same procedure as before, 28 small border squares are obtained, a number corresponding very closely to the movements of the moon. If still more accurate representations were required, the side of the square was divided into 16, and similarly dealt with, giving 60 small squares and this was one of the finest scales known to the ancients. In this way is afforded a simple explanation of the magic numbers of the ancients, numbers still regarded with awe in the Orient, and by some supposedly civilised people in the Occident ; numbers the reason for which is by Menon's theory at last satisfactorily explained for the first time. For further division on the same principle yields 124 squares, a scale used by Indians in the Vedic Age ; the next in the series gives 252, again found in India ; the next yields 508, a number sacred to Hindus ; and so on. By this means can be obtained every sacred number yet discovered.

This ancient method of employing squares was used for many purposes. Thus all sacred institutions were bound up with the square form, temples were so built, and their central holy of holies offer another startling confirmation of Menon's theory, since plans of the latter invariably correspond to the number of central squares erased in the procedure of calculation. According to the number of the original divisions the numbers of these central squares run in a series of 4, 12, 20, 28, 36, 44, 52, 60, 68, 76, and so on, all of which are found to be sacred in some place or another.

IMPORTANT ADVANCE.

Originally, certain symbols denoted these magic squares, derived probably from ancient gods representations of which seemed to be presented by certain constellations, hence the signs of the zodiac. Gradually, however, as the astrologer became more systematic, the appropriate number itself came to be used. Now, systematisation is the essence of civilization, and it is of necessity preceded by the capacity of abstraction. Therefore this emergence of the number concept is one of the most important stages in the progress of man. Moreover, our astrologers soon went a step further, and began to use a single concrete mark or sign to denote a number, a part, or a group of either, while abstract ideas themselves soon came to be similarly represented. In this manner originated the ideographs and hieroglyphs that mark the beginning of writing.

From the same sources came ideas as to form. The earth was believed to be flat, and this, taken together with the square appearance of the horizon, led the ancients to regard the earth as a flat square. This inevitably raised questions as to the shape of the heavens, and these were answered by the simple procedure of joining the zenith to the boundary of the horizon by straight lines, giving the pyramid. This serves to explain the quantities of these structures left by the Egyptians and many other ancient peoples the world over.

In time the square evolved into a circular shape, giving rise to the "vault" or the "dome" of heaven ; the old square sun-dial became the circular astrolabe of medieval times ; while architecturally, the gable became the arch and the pyramid the dome. Thus, by this simple theory we get a unified conception of the Universe as understood at the dawn of civilization, and it indicates the profound psychological truth that the human mind has at all places and at all times tended to think along very similar lines.

Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Saturday 7 January 1933, page 9