India had its own prime meridian passing through Ujjain: New NCERT textbook
New Delhi: India had a prime meridian of its own much ahead of the Greenwich meridian and it was called “madhya rekha”, which passed through the city of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, according to a new Class-6 NCERT textbook for social science.
No mention of caste-based discrimination, tweaks in references to B R Ambedkar’s experience about the discrimination, referring to the Harappan civilisation as “Sindhu-Sarasvati” are also among the changes in the textbook developed according to a new curriculum.
“The Greenwich Meridian is not the first prime meridian. There were others in the past. In fact, many centuries before Europe, India had a prime meridian of its own! It was called madhya rekhā (or ‘middle line’) and passed through the city of Ujjayinī (today Ujjain), which was a reputed centre for astronomy over many centuries. “Varāhamihira, a famous astronomer, lived and worked there some 1,500 years ago. Indian astronomers were aware of the concepts of latitude and longitude, including the need for a zero or prime meridian. The Ujjayinī meridian became a reference for calculations in all Indian astronomical texts,” the textbook reads.
In a departure from the past, the textbook makes multiple references to the “Sarasvati” river in the chapter pertaining to the beginning of the Indian civilisation.
In the new textbook, the river finds a prominent place in a chapter on the “Beginnings of Indian Civilisation”, where the Harappan civilisation is referred to as the “Indus-Sarasvati” or “Sindhu-Sarasvati” civilisation. It says the “Sarasvati” basin included major cities of the civilisation -- Rakhigarhi and Ganweriwala -- along with smaller cities and towns.
The river, according to the new textbook, “today goes by the name of
‘Ghaggar’ in India and ‘Hakra’ in Pakistan (hence the name ‘Ghaggar-Hakra River’)” and is now seasonal.
The textbook, titled “Exploring Society India and Beyond”, has details on the Vedas without mentioning the caste system and that women and Shudras were not allowed to study these scriptures.
