Origin of the Seven Weekdays
Traces the global seven-day week to its roots in ancient Indian astronomy. Challenges the common belief that it originated in Egypt or Greece.
The Investigation
The video investigates how the seven-day week’s planetary naming system—commonly attributed to Babylonian or Greco-Roman sources—actually aligns with ancient Indian astronomical texts like the Surya Siddhanta and Bhagavatam.
The System
The Surya Siddhanta describes assigning each of the 24 daily hours to celestial bodies in sequence based on perceived speed, from Saturn (slowest) to Moon (fastest). This determines which planet governs each day’s first hour and subsequently names the day.
Visual Approach
I developed loop-based animations showing how this hour-to-day mapping functioned and how the system spread through Greek, Roman, and Germanic civilizations before returning to India via colonial education—often disconnected from its original Indic roots.
Correcting Misconceptions
The video also corrects misconceptions about the 24-hour day originating in Greece, instead referencing early Indian texts describing the day divided into 24 horā (from ahorātra, meaning day-night).
All production elements—research, scripting, editing, voiceover, and animation—were completed internally to present a comprehensive reexamination of this global timekeeping structure’s true origins.