Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy
The Richard L. Thompson Reading Group is facilitating this ongoing series as an informal study of Richard L. Thompson's (Sadaputa dasa) works. These events are offered online and hosted in person at the BIHS library in Gainesville, FL, on alternate Saturdays 11 am – 12:30 pm EDT (see schedule below for dates)
Six of Thompson’s books will be covered chapter by chapter with a lecture summarizing the contents and highlighting the chapter’s essential messages, followed by a discussion session. Having completed his first book, Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science: An Investigation Into the Nature of Consciousness and Form (1981) in June 23, the series presented his second book, Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy (1989), July 1 – November 4, 2023.
The mysteries of the Fifth Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam have long puzzled students of Vedic cosmography and astronomy. Confronted with a description of the universe that seems much at variance with the information provided by our senses and standard astronomical calculations, foreign observers—and even Indian commentators—from the Middle Ages up to the present have concluded that the Bhāgavatam’s account, elaborated in other Purāṇas, must be mythological. On the other hand, the same persons have been much impressed with Vedic astronomical treatises, the Jyotiṣa Śāstras, which provide remarkably accurate measurements of the solar system.
In this publication, Thompson shows that the Fifth Canto’s cosmography and the accounts of the solar system found in the Jyotiṣa Śāstras are not contradictory, but that they in fact represent distinct yet mutually consistent ways of comprehending a universe with important features beyond the range of ordinary sense perception.
Schedule for Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy
| ALL DATES ARE 2023 | ||
| July 1 | VCA Introduction – Bob Cohen (Brahmatirtha), Prishni Sutton | |
| July 15 | Ch 1. The Astronomical Siddhāntas – Maricio Garrido (Murli Gopal) | |
| July 29 | Ch 2. Vedic Physics: The Nature of Space, Time, and Matter – Krishna Narasimhan (Narasimhadeva) | |
| August 12 | Ch 3. Vedic Cosmography – Prishni Sutton | |
| August 26 | Ch 4. The Vertical Dimension – Vasyl Semenov (Dvija Govinda) | |
| September 9 | Ch 5. The Empirical Case for the Vedic World System – Christopher Beetle (Krishna Kripa) | |
| September 23 | Ch 6. Modern Astrophysics and the Vedic Perspective – Doug Watson | |
| October 7 | Ch 7. Red Shifts and the Expanding Universe – Hugo Stetz | |
| October 21 | Ch 8. Questions and Answers – Prishni Sutton | |
| November 4 | Appendices – S. E. Kreitzer (Sthita-dhi-muni) | |
Upcoming
Four more of Thompson’s books will be included in the Lecture Series, in chronological order:
- Parallels [Alien Identities]: Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena (1993)
- Mysteries of the Sacred Universe: The Cosmology of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (2000)
- Maya: The World As Virtual Reality (2003)
- God & Science: Divine Causation and the Laws of Nature (2004)