Puram 30 is attributed to Muthukannan Chathanar. As his name indicates, he would have been a Buddhist. He has contributed a few more Purams to Purananuru, which are clearly Buddhist sermons preached to a Chola king.
He states: The path of the sun round the Earth, and the size of the Earth, the way of the winds, have been observed and measured, as if the discoverers had actually gone, measured and verified them (cenru alantu arintor pola). This has been interpreted as a poetic figure (atisayokti - exaggeration) to emphasize the immeasurable greatness of the king whom Chattanar praises.
By the 2nd century BCE, Pythagoras and his school had worked out the mathematics of a Geo-centric Universe, and the sun's path as an ecliptic. Hipparchus (146-127 BCE) had discovered the precession of the equinoxes. Eratosthenes (3rd Cent BCE), the Father of Geodesy, had calculated the size of the Earth. Hippalus, the Greek/Egyptian navigator, had discovered the regularity of the monsoons, and how to use this knowledge to reduce the sailing time to India (cf., Sasthry KAN: Foreign Notices of South India ....., University of Madras, Reprint 2001, pp 53, etc.) Buddhist monks had spread through Afghanistan towards the Middle East, and towards China, exchanging ideas. No wonder that "our" Chathanar was so far ahead of his contemporaries in Tamilakam in scientific knowledge.
Incidentally, this confirms the dating of the Purananuru to the turn of BCE into CE.
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