Vimshottari dasa - 360 or 365 days?

March 18, 2006

Dear Visti,

Thank you for your clarification about this. I find your explanation

complicated, so I'll have to think about it carefully to try to get

my head around it! I'm sure you're probabaly right, but at the

moment I still can't see how we could get a coherent year and month-

lord sequence using a true solar year counted from Creation. My

edition of BPHS is indeed, as you say, not explicit, and I was

relying on Raman's interpretation of it. As I understand it, you are

clearly saying that Raman is wrong to say (in "Graha and Bhava

Balas", p.42 item 59): "The Year and Month: The Hindus, for

astrological purposes, consider a year and a month of 360 and 30

days repectively. They are neither solar, nor lunar, nor luni-

solar". His interpretation of Parasara's way to calculate kaal-bala,

where the year and month lords must be worked out by a calculation

involving a division of shrishtyadi ahargana (days since Creation)

by 360 ("the number of days in a year", as he says) must also be

wrong.

So I have to decide whose analysis to follow on this question!

Thank you very much for your kind attention and patience.

Graham

, "Visti Larsen" <visti

wrote:

>

> ||Hare Rama Krsna||

> Dear Graham, Namaskar

> I've looked at the sloka about kala bala, and it seems you must

have the

> Sharma edition? The calculation that you mention is about

calculating the

> Varsha, Masa, Dina and Hora Bala, i.e. Year, Month, Day and Hour

strength.

> Here the point is to find the planet lording that particular year,

month,

> day, etc. and by virtue of its lordship it gains strength.

>

> How to do this is then referred to in Surya Siddhanta by Sharma,

because

> PARASARA DOESN'T SAY HOW. When referring to Surya Siddhanta i see

that the

> sloka qouted in BPHS by Sharma is very abridged. Infact the

calculation

> details finding the ammount of days passed since the creation.

Here the

> yugas are initially added, converted into months, added to the

lunar/solar

> months which are again converted into savana months and lastly

into days and

> thus also savana days (as savana days imply the visible day).

> By performing such a conversion at the time of the suns entry into

Aries or

> ones sunsign, one can find the planet lording the year and month

> respectively, based on the weekday at that time. The planet

lording the day

> is the weekday of birth itself.

> However, this doesn't mean that savana years were used to

calculate the

> yugas and all, but are again used in conversion to figure out the

visible

> day for sake of judging the weekday lords.

> So the argument about kala bala cannot be accepted based on this.

> Best wishes,

> ***

> Visti Larsen

> For services and articles visit:

> http://srigaruda.com or http://astrovisti.com

> ***

>

[] On

> Behalf Of Graham Fox

> 17 March 2006 13:13

>

> [Om Krishna Guru] Re: Vimshottari dasa - 360 or

365 days?

>

> Dear Swee,

> Thank you for this clarification, which gives weight to the

argument

> for using solar sidereal year in a number of cases: I notice that

> number of days in Maha yuga as per Narada Purana works out at very

> close to 4,320,000 sidereal solar years, whereas the figure for

> savana years is less coherent. And of course, planetary positions

> must be calculated as per sidereal positions as in sidereal solar

> year (I don't think anybody questions that). The sloka does not

> specifically say that the year "shares" of vimsottari dasa are to

be

> calculated with solar sidereal year, but this does indeed seem a

> likely implication of the meaning of these slokas.

> There is just the problem that Parasara calculates kaal bala using

a

> 360 day year, counted from Creation (not a solar year), so he must

> be working in some other system of yuga.

>

> Also, your slokas from the Purana indicate that:

>

> "grahANAM nikhilashcAro gR^ihyate saura mAnataH|

> vR^iShTervidhAnaM strIgarbhaH sAvanenaiva gR^ihyate||56.111||

>

> Meaning: Planetary movements are reckoned through Saura - Solar

> Measure

> Pregnancy and rainy season, reckon them from Savana - Civil

measure."

>

> This seems strange. If people had tried to reckon rainy season

using

> the savana year, they would very quickly have got into difficulty,

> as after just 6 years their calculations would have been more than

> one month out of phase with the seasons (and they would thus be

> expecting the rainy season at the wrong time).

>

> Thanks again for the information.

> Graham

>

> , "Swee Chan" <swee@> wrote:

> >

> > "Gopijana-vallabha-caranau sharanam prapadye."

> > "Namo gopijana-vallabhabhyam"

> >

> > Dear Raghunatha,

> > Namaste

> >

> > I am repeating the sloka below for your attention yet again.

> >

> > grahANAM nikhilashcAro gR^ihyate saura mAnataH|

> > vR^iShTervidhAnaM strIgarbhaH sAvanenaiva gR^ihyate||56.111||

> >

> > Meaning: Planetary movements are reckoned through Saura - Solar

> Measure.

> >

> > In Narada Purana, Chapter 55 sloka 70 - There are 1,577,917,828

> terrestrial

> > days in a maha yuga. The time from sunrise to sunrise is a

> terrestrial civil

> > day - bhumi-savana -vasara.

> >

> > Sanjay ji has always recommended the 360 deg solar year. My

> timings are all

> > based on this setting.

> >

> > Love,

> > Swee

> >

> > sohamsa [sohamsa]

On