[Buddha-l] flat earth?

[curt]

F.K. Lehman (F.K.L. Chit Hlaing) wrote:
> Wel, Curt, the Theravada Meru-centred cosmology definitely is a 
> flat-earth view

That's interesting - but was this understood to be literally true of the 
physical world? India and China were ocean going nations from way back 
and also had a sophisticated understanding of astronomy. This makes it 
extremely unlikely that any educated person in India or China actually 
believed that the earth was flat. And literalism is not something that 
can be assumed when it comes to mapping "cosmological systems" to what 
people actually believed about the physical world. Is there any evidence 
that Indian and/or Chinese scientists assumed the earth was flat on the 
basis of religious theories? Was there conflict between people who knew 
that the earth was round and religious authorities who insisted it was flat?

Batchelor's contention is clearly that all "religions" have always 
taught people until the advent of modern science that the earth is 
literally physically flat. My only question is whether there is no 
evidence for this ridiculous claim or only very little.

- Curt