Q1.
Who was Varahamihira, and what did he say about rainfall in his work Brihatsamhita?
Answer
Varahamihira was an astronomer and mathematician of the sixth century CE who lived in Ujjaini — modern-day Ujjain, in Madhya Pradesh.
In his work Brihatsamhita he gave methods for predicting seasonal rainfall. His predictions were based on natural factors that he observed carefully, such as:
- cloud formation — the shape, colour and behaviour of clouds;
- wind patterns — the direction and nature of the winds;
- the position of the stars and the moon;
- and other natural phenomena.
Why this matters: the winds and clouds Varahamihira watched are themselves produced by heat transfer — the Sun heats land and water unevenly, air rises by convection, water evaporates and condenses into clouds. Long before modern instruments existed, he was reading the same water cycle you are studying in this chapter, and using it to help farmers plan their sowing.
Did you know? Today the India Meteorological Department does this work with satellites, radars and computer models — but the basic idea is the same: watch the clouds, the winds and the moisture, and predict the rain.