Author: Abhay Vaidya
Publication: The Times of India
Date: April 28, 2001
Three factors - the devastating
earthquake in Gujarat, research on 'earthquake clouds' by a California-based
Chinese scholar and the mention of similar 'earthquake clouds' in ancient
Indian manuscript called Brihat Samhita-are generating fresh interest in
this manuscript.
Dr S.N. Bhavsar, a Vedic scholar
associated with the physics department at the University of Pune, has sought
to draw the attention of the public to the elaborate references to earthquakes,
their causes and predictability by Varahamihira in Brihat Samhita.
The greatness of the sixth century
Indian philosopher, mathematician and ronomer, Varahamihira (505-587 A.D.),
is acknowledged by many, including the Prof Jayant Narlikar-headed Inter-University
Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCCA). In fact, IUCCA has has a
library block named after him. The Ujjain-born Varahamihira, who was a
famed astrologer-astronomer of his age, was one of the navaratnas (nine
gems) in the court of king Vikramaditya Chandragupta II. His works, Pancha-siddhantika
(The Five Astronomical Canons) and Brihat Samhita (The Great Compilation),
are considered seminal texts on ancient Indian astronomy and astrology.
What has astonished some scientists
and Vedic scholars here and has renewed interest in Brihat Samhita, are
the references to unusual "earthquake clouds" as a precursor to earthquakes.
The 32nd chapter of Brihat Samhita
is devoted to 'Signs of Earthquake' and seeks to correlate earthquakes
with cosmic and planetary influences, underground water and undersea activities,
unusual cloud formations and the abnormal behaviour of animals.
"I find it rather odd that the description
of earthquake clouds in Brihat Samhita matches with the observations made
by Zhonghao Shaou at the Earthquake Prediction Centre in Pasadena, California,"
Dr B.D. Kulkarni, head of the National Chemical Laboratory's chemical engineering
division told this newspaper.
Over the last ten years, Zhonghao
Shou, a retired Chinese chemist based near Caltech in California, has been
using satellite imagery and other scientific tools to fine-tune his theory
of 'earthquake clouds' as precursors to earthquakes. Mr Zhonghao, who is
attracting scientific attention but is yet to be accepted by the scientific
community, says he has so far predicted 39 quakes since 1990.
Mr Zhonghao maintains a web-site
and says that ancient Chinese and Italians also tried to predict earthquakes
on the basis of pecu iarly-shaped clouds.
According to Mr Zhonghao, earthquake
clouds are formed when underground water is converted into water vapour
by the heat generated in the epicentric area of a fault rock, which is
undergoing constant stress and friction.
When this vapour escapes to the
surface and rises through the atmosphere, it forms a cloud. "The shape
of the gap and surface current may endow the cloud with a special configuration
like a snake, a wave, a feather or a lantern etc., which will be able to
be distinguished from weather clouds," says Mr Zhonghao.
Mr Zhonghao says that earthquake
prediction is possible by identifying such clouds as "an earthquake generally
occurs within 49 days of the first appearance of the cloud." As Dr Bhavsar
pointed out, Varahamihira, too, speaks of unusual cloud formations, a week
before the occurrence of an earthquake.
Varahamihira sought to categorise
different kinds of earthquakes and claimed that indications of one particular
kind would appear in the form of unusual cloud formations a week before
its occurrence. "The indications appearing a week before are the following:
huge clouds resembling blue lilies, bees and collyrium in colour, rumbling
pleasantly, and shining with flashes of lightning, will pour down slender
lines of water resembling sharp clouds. An earthquake of this circle will
those that are dependent on the seas and rivers; and it will lead to excessive
rains."
These observations are available
in the English translation of the two-volume Brihat Samhita with the original
Sanskrit texts, exhaustive notes and literary comments by M. Ramakrishna
Bhat. The book has been published by the Delhi-based Motilal Banarsidass
Publishers.
"What needs to be acknowledged,"
he stressed, "is that the 1,500 years ago a celebrated astronomer-astrologer-mathematician
sought to study earthquakes on the Indian subcontinent. He drew co-relations
between terrestrial earth, the atmosphere and planetary influences. He
described earth as a mass floating on water and spoke of unusual cloud
formations and abnormal animal behaviour as precursors to earthquakes."
