750 Year Old Sundial at Konark, India - Moondial too?

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0:00 - An Accurate Clock
2:41 - Another Clock
3:25 - Time after Sunset
4:02 - Moondials
4:17 - Mysterious Saint
5:12 - Limited Knowledge
6:11 - Clues on the Wheels
6:55 - Conclusion

Let's take a look at the accuracy of the Sundial at Konark Sun temple in India built in 1250 A.D. People still use it today to tell time. Let me show you a short clip of a tour guide figuring out the time and then I will explain how this sundial works.

As you can see, the sundial is pretty accurate and people are amazed by it. Let's take a closer look and see how it works. The sundial has 8 major spokes that divide 24 hours into 8 equal parts, which means that the time between two major spokes is 3 hours. There are 8 minor spokes as well. Each minor spoke runs exactly in the middle of 2 major spokes. This means that the minor spoke divides the 3 hours in half, so the time between a major spoke and a minor spoke is an hour and half or 90 minutes.

Now, at the edge of the wheel, you can see a lot of beads. If you observe carefully, you can see that there are 30 beads between a minor and a major spoke. So, the 90 minutes are further divided by 30 beads. This means that each bead carries a value of 3 minutes. The beads are large enough, so you can also see if the shadow falls in the center of the bead or on one of the ends of the bead. This way we can further calculate time accurately to the minute.

The sundial shows time in an anti-clockwise fashion. At the top, the major spoke stands for midnight and this spoke stands for 3 A.M and this one for 6 A.M and so on. When I place a finger or a pen at the tail of the animal in the axle, the shadow will fall on the edge of the wheel. Now, I simply note the bead where the shadow falls. Using the math we did before, I can easily tell the current time precisely down to the minute. Imagine how much time and coordination would have happened between the astronomers, engineers and sculptors to create something like this 750 years ago.

Now if you are observing closely, you would have 2 questions in your mind right now. The first question would be, what happens when the sun moves from east to west. Since the wheel is carved on a wall, the sun would not shine on this wheel at all. How can we tell time in the afternoons? Now, the Konark temple has another wheel or sundial, located on the west side of the temple as well. You can just use the other sundial that will work perfectly from afternoon, until sunset.

This is the second and the most interesting question. How do you tell time after sunset? There would be no sun, and hence no shadows from sunset till the next morning's sunrise. After all, we have 2 sundials in the temple which work only when the sun shines. To this question, I want to point out that the Konark temple does not have just 2 wheels like this. The temple has a total of 24 wheels, all accurately carved just like the sundials. Have you heard of the Moondial? Do you know that the moondials can work just like sun dials during night time? What if the other wheels in the temple could be used as moondials?

Many people think that the other 22 wheels were carved for decorative or religious purposes and do not have an actual use. This is what people thought about the 2 sundials as well. Believe it or not, people thought that all the 24 wheels were just carved for beauty and as Hindu symbols. About 100 years ago, it became known that this was a sundial when an old yogi was seen calculating time secretly. Apparently selected people were using these wheels for generations and for 650 years no one else knew about it. They say that when they asked him about the purpose of the other 22 wheels, the yogi refused to talk and simply walked away.

And our knowledge of just these 2 sundials themselves is actually very limited. You can see how there are multiple circles of beads. You can see carvings and markings all over these sundials, and we don't the meaning of most of them. For example, this carving on a major spoke has exactly 60 beads. Notice how in some carving you can see leaves and flowers which may mean Spring or Summer. Notice how in some carvings you can see lemurs mating, which only happens during winter. So, these sundials could have even been used as an almanac for a variety of different things. Now you can understand how limited our knowledge is about the rest of the 22 wheels.

#Suntemple #India #Ancienttechnology

[RealPraveenMohan]

If you like this video, you will enjoy:

[TheAyasan]

India will never stop to amaze me, thumbs up and keep up the good work!

[KUNALBISWAS-NEWS-TECH-SHORT]

Unfortunately, We don`t read about this in our school nor collages under any stream, We Indians may know about the rest of the world but utter clueless about our own achievements, Thanks for enlightening us ..

[barbaraplaisance]

I found your page quite by accident. I can't stop watching your videos! I've always had an extreme interest of ancient civilizations ( Maya, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Aztec, and so on), but for some reason ancient India was never on my radar. You have shown a light into this ancient culture for me and left me with a desire to learn more. Thank you for my new obsession

[tamilvanan]

Every Temple in India is a Door way to mystic things. The westerners invaded India were know it then destroyed and stole most. We are living like an Orphan, like a lost child because the knowledge thread from our ancestors has been disconnected for a long time.

Your work is so important so that the mass can be connected back again or at least save the pride.
Thanks and please continue.

[chandrakantamishra]

this temple of sun god is of my own state odisha . the temple was built in 12th century by king langula narasinha deva . the temple also tells the story of a heroic 12 year old boy who dedicated his life for the shake of his father, the head architect of the temple and other workers. the boy gave a finishing touch to the temple which couldn't be done by others .the temple is the proud of our odia culture .ଜୟ ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ ।

[sachinasan]

sir, You have really got a scientific mind, brilliant. Till date nobody has explained the real purpose of temples in India as you have done. I follow your videos regularly. Keep up the good work. My humble nameste to you.

[cdharz]

Just Unbelievable and my mouth remained open ! I am almost atheist kind of person, But now i m a proud hindu because i am successor of such a great religion and race. I am proud of my ancestors and their knowledge..I became richer today with this knowledge

[costiniucmircea]

Very nice and interesting this sundial. It is very well preserved and explanations are very detailed. Mircea

[alainrouthier]

we find answers to all our quest and questions in India

[lloydrobert]

This makes me wonder how much we've forgotten in the collective memory of mankind. And what did that yogi know, and how? 
Thank you for posting this.  

[akashdeepstarlord]

Mainstream historians are all wrong. These ancient temples are atleast 2000 -3000 years old when yogis were spiritually and technologically much more advanced.

[venkateshkaram]

i appreciate the work what you've done.its not a easy task to do.

[spacecase]

The amount of detail of these monuments is mind blowing.  I wish I could have seen them before all the erosion.  Another great and informative video!

[ivarbones]

This is amazing...The other dials are possible used for astronomy is my best guess.

[abhisheksoni]

The civilization of bharat (india) is highly advanced sadly the wealth and knowledge is either looted or destroyed by invaders. There was a book in sanskrit called "yantra saraswana" ( Mechanics) mentioned 109 different machines and their functions. The temples was undoubtedly made by machines mentioned in our texts. It is not possible to make these structures by hammer or simple tools.

[prasantkumarmallik]

Well...I belong to this state but never had this much detailed info. Thank You

[rinrinn]

Sadly nowadays mainstream history are all base on western knowledge, western civilization only exist for so short compare to India and China, China itself is at least 5000 years old of history, even the language chinese is an ancient history, the oldest still using languages and it contains 10 thousands over individual alphabets, and each individual alphabet can be combine and form words, compare to western alphabet which only contains 26 letters. We chinese has been using the same text and language since the beginning of our civilization. It's is well constructed and well developed, test through time and people, ancient civilization like India and Chinese were soo far advance then western civilization during the same era, then their Kings and Queens still living in a stone castle, we already building cities with extraordinary huge and beautiful place with precise mathematic design, when our civilization bore of thousand of years war and found a away to live harmony through business trade in ancient time, western civilization were still in the dark age. So little is know to India and China, the only thing still exist and proofed to withstand the test of time is our huge ancient wall built thousand years ago still standing right now, and our gigantic city and place. Go china and see for yourself, every city you visit will find modern city built on top of ancient city, and the building, wall of our ancient empire still remain along side of modern skyscraper ...

[elisabeth]

Hello my friend,
congratulations to a fantastic and very interesting video about India !!!
Thank you for the great explanation, in words as in very good visual 
presentation !
Thumbs up ♥5♥  and greetings from Vienna,  Elisabeth

[pushpitamitra]

many Hindu temples like dilwara belur, halebid were covered by mud or had simple outside appearance to protect it from Muslim invasion.