"The development of astronomy in India has come a long way from the Vedic times to the current day, now with the ISRO heading our space exploration and research in astronomy.
When mentioning Indian astronomy, an image that automatically comes to our mind is that of Jantar Mantar. Built by Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur in the 18th century these collections of huge instruments for astronomical observations were fundamentally based on ancient India's astronomy texts. Five Jantar Mantar was built to revise the calendars and make a more accurate collection of tables that could predict the motions of the major stars and planets to be used for more accurate time measurement, improved predictions of eclipses, and better tracking of star and planetary positions relative to earth.
Making the instruments- which were based on earlier designs of similar instruments used by astronomers of the bygone days-so large in scale is supposed to have been aimed at increasing their accuracy. In there, one can find the world's largest sundial and literally see the sun's shadow move every second. Records also show that telescopes were built and used in certain observations. This kind of accuracy helped produce in those ages some remarkably accurate results, which even the contemporary Europeans could not beat.
One important lesson to learn from the Jantar Mantar is that the Raja built five of them. He could have built just one and been happy with the results. He built five so that the results given by one observatory could be verified against those of another. This kind of verification obviously reduced the human error involved when taking readings on an instrument. Also, the five observatories were in five different cities. Thus, one could check the position readings of heavenly bodies from different parts of the earth and again verify the overall results. This shows a strong display of the scientific inquiry method in the minds of our past astronomers.
The ideas behind Jantar Mantar came from ancient Indian texts by Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Bhaskaracharya, and others. The most important texts of ancient Indian astronomy had been compiled between the 5th and 15th centuries AD-the classical era of Indian astronomy. The more familiar ones among these works are Aryabhateeya, Aryabhatasiddhanta, Pancasiddhantika, and Laghubhaskariyam.
Ancient Indian astronomers were notable in several respects. Their achievements are even more baffling considering they never used any kind of telescopes. They put forth the sun-centric theory for the solar system, elliptical orbits for planets instead of circular ones, reasonably accurate calculations for the length of a year and the earth's dimensions, and the idea that our sun was no different from the countless other stars in the night sky.
In the days of its beginning, Indian astronomy had been influenced by the ideas of Greeks and Romans. Later through trade and other contacts, we influenced the course of astronomy in China and the Islamic world. Through the Islamic world, ideas of Indian astronomy were introduced back in Europe.
Somewhere during the Middle Ages, progress in the field of astronomy stood still and an admixture of astronomy and astrology arose. This association with astrology derailed Indian astronomy and blind faith and superstitions started to dominate.
Interestingly, people were still interested in making observations of the night sky and that art keep improving. They had, however, stopped trying to understand what their observations meant. With the colonization, the European school of astronomy displaced our own. The last remarkable astronomer in Pre-Independence India was Samanta Chandrasekhara. His book Siddhant Darpana and his use of simple instruments in getting accurate observations earned him praise even from the British.
In our present era, the Indian space program stands on the contributions by two giants in the field of physics - Homi J Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai. It was their tireless efforts, which initiated work in space research under the Department of Atomic Energy. Observatories started to be set up and more research laboratories started to contribute directly to fields important in astronomy and space exploration.
Over this period of time, India also produced some remarkable astronomers and astrophysicists. Meghnad Saha and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar are two world-renowned names in astrophysics. On the side of observational astronomy, we had Dr. M. K. Vainu Bappu- till date the only Indian to have a comet named after him.
Dr. Bappu was elected as the President of the International Astronomical Union from 1979 to 1982. He is the person responsible for reviving observational astronomy in India and taking it to great heights. Currently, the Giant Meter-wave Radio Telescope (GMRT) at Khodad near Pune is the largest of its kind in the world. The Kavalur observatory, named after Dr.Bappu, is one of the best equipped in the eastern hemisphere. It has a 2.3 metre aperture optical telescope, which is the largest one can find in Asia. Currently, Indian astronomers cooperate and aid western colleagues with unique astronomical observations taken from our observatories.
ISRO became a separate entity in 1969. From then, it has had a glorious path from launching the Indian satellite Atyabhatta to the lunar mission Chandrayaan 1. ISRO programmes have become more and more ambitious. With solid research and hard work backing up their plans, it is also no wonder that they have been crossing one landmark after another.
Gone are the days when we had to depend on other nations to launch our satellites. With our state-of-the-art collection of launch vehicle fleets including the PSLV, the GSLV, and the GSLV M III, we are even offering economical satellite launch facilities to other nations.
Simultaneously, better satellites have been launched that work in communication, remote sensing imaging, weather prediction, and geological exploration. These developments have consistently aided our country's progress. ISRO, as the sixth-largest space exploration agency in the world, now commands considerable respect and credibility and has improved bilateral ties with similar agencies of other nations. In the future, ISRO intends to work on sending manned space missions, further moon exploration, and even send a probe to Mars. Soon, we would be able to send an Indian to space using our own technology and thus emulate what Rakesh Sharma did as part of a Soviet mission."
(Excerpt from SCIENCE INDIA- The National Science Magazine, ISSN 0972-8287, pp:48-50 )
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