Bharathiya Bhu-Tattwa-Rahasyam (Geological Foundations of Indology) An Old and Rare Book

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India enjoys an antiquity that is unrivalled in any Civilisation under the Sun. Geologically, culturally, socially. scientifically India has been unique. To study India in all its perspective is a satisfaction by itself. Students of Indology must be proud of the material of their study which is something stupendous and inexhaustive. This can be said of very few Civilisations indeed! It is not for no reason that celebrated Indologist of Germany Max Muller observed that "If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow-in some parts a very paradise on earth - I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant - I shall point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, infact more truly humane, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life again I should point to India. Many studies have been and are being carried out on India by Indians and foreigners from the last century especially systematically since the foundations of the Archaeological Survey of India were first laid out by Bruce Foote of the Geological Survey of India.

The year 1890 A.D. could be considered the year of origin of Egyptology when Norman Lockyer visited Levant and the ruins of the Parthenon (Lockyer, 1964). According to Lockyer, his friend who accompanied him let him a pocket compass by which he ascertained the direction in which the Parthenon was built. He started thinking whether there could be any astronomical basis for these constructions since he was aware of the fact that in England the eastern windows of the churches faced generally to the place of sunrise on the festival of the patron saint. He observed that "It struck me that, since nothing was known, an enquiry into the subject-provided an enquiry was possible for a stay at home-might help the matter forward to a certain extent. So, as it was well known that the temples in Egypt had been most carefully examined and oriented both by the French in 1796 and by the Prussians in 1884, I determined to see whether it was possible to get any information on the general question from them, as it was extremely likely that such temples as that at Eleusis were more or less connected with Egyptian ideas. I soon found that, although neither the French nor the Germans apparently paid any heed to the possible astronomical ideas of the temple builders, there was little doubt that astronomical considerations had a great deal to do with the direction towards which those temples faced. In a series of lectures given at the School of Mines in November 1890, I took the opportunity of pointing out that in the way archaeologists and others might ultimately be enabled to arrive at dates in regard to the foundations of temples, and possibly to advance knowledge in several other directions."