Astronomical Instruments in India
Abstract
The earliest astronomical instruments used in India were the gnomon and the water clock. In the early seventh century, Brahmagupta described ten types of instruments, which were adopted by all subsequent writers with minor modifications. Contact with Islamic astronomy in the second millennium AD led to a radical change. Sanskrit texts began to lay emphasis on the importance of observational instruments. Exclusive texts on instruments were composed. Islamic instruments like the astrolabe were adopted and some new types of instruments were developed. Production and use of these traditional instruments continued, along with the cultivation of traditional astronomy, up to the end of the nineteenth century.
- Publication:
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Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy
- Pub Date:
- 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_251
- Bibcode:
- 2015hae..book.2007S
- Keywords:
-
- Physics