Day of the week

[Guest guest]

I had asked this question on atleast one astrology list several months

ago and did not receive any satisfactory answer. I understand the

reasoning behind the *ordering* of the weekdays, but I don't

understand the *astronomical* basis for fixing the weekday of a

particular date. In fact there is no astronomical phenomenon which has

a 7-day cycle. The shortest is the lunar cycle of approx 28 days which

can be split into two (sukla paksha and krishna paksha) of approx. 14

days each. One could argue that going from there to a 7-day week is

simply a matter of splitting that period further.

 

One astrologer in Chennai who I asked the question to through my dad

mentioned that at some point in the past, someone (sages? astrologers?

king?) fixed a particular day when the Sun was at its "peak"

(exalted?) as the day ruled by Sun and the rest of the calendar then

follows.

 

While there might be some basis for this explanation, I find it hard

to believe that inspite of the several calendar changes that we've had

over the history of civilization, the weekday count has been

maintained consistently across cultures and continents. I do know that

atleast one calendar change (Julian to Gregorian? don't remember)

explicitly maintained the weekday sequence. But how is it that the

western calendar of today matches the Hindu calendar when both of them

most likely evolved independently?

 

After spending several hours searching for an explanation, I

"resolved" the problem differently. I no longer pay attention to the

weekday when doing puja, etc. I go only by the tithi, which is

astronomically verifiable. I use the tithi lordships indicated in VAIA

(and several other books I suppose). So if someone says "do this puja

on tuesday to propitiate Mars" I translate it to "do this puja on

tritiya or ekadasi tithis to propitiate Mars".

 

At a more psychological level, perhaps it doesn't matter really if

there is any basis. As long as the person has faith that a particular

planet will be propitiated by doing puja on a particular day, I

believe that they will get the desired effects irrespective of whether

that day is really ruled by that planet or not. But then, extending

that logic, one could argue that the puja could be done on any day!

 

I would like other learned members of this group and the Gurus to

comment on this subject.

 

Regards,

 

Vinod

 

vedic astrology, "luvpandit" <rajneesh_vs@h...>

wrote:

> Adarniye Guruvar avem Mitragan,

> I came across this question and have not been able to

> find any answer uptill now. So i thought of putting it here.

>

>

> In astrology we are supposed to perform various activities like

> Upavasa and Upaya(remedies) on some particular days like sunday

> monday etc as each day is considered to be associtated with a

> particular planet or Lord. Now the question is ...

>

> Do we have any particular method using which we can determine the

day

> of the week without using the month and the year information . or

put

> in other words how was the first day of these calender years

> decided. ?

>

> I hope i could explain my doubt well and some of the learned people

> here would definetely be able to answer it.

>

> Thank You

> Regards

> Rajneesh Vashisht

[Guest guest]

Om Krishna Guru

 

Dear Vinod,

 

The day lord is the lord of the first hora (from sunrise) on that day.

 

For Tuesday it is Mars, who is the lord of first hora. So, you do a

puja for kartikeya on a Tuesday etc.,

 

There are 24 horas in a day and their order is the slowest moving

planet to the fastest moving i.e, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus,

Mercury & Moon. (Geocentric)

 

So, from Saturn the 25th you count is Sun. Therefore Sun day follows

Satur(n) day. It is the days, which have come from Horas and not the

other way around.

 

Does the above make sense to you?

 

If you can accept Mars as the tithi lord for ekadasi, i think you can

accept, Mars as the day ord for Tuesday as well!

 

regards

viswanadham

 

vedic astrology, "Vinod" <vinod@v...> wrote

> I had asked this question on atleast one astrology list several

months

> ago and did not receive any satisfactory answer. I understand the

> reasoning behind the *ordering* of the weekdays, but I don't

> understand the *astronomical* basis for fixing the weekday of a

> particular date. In fact there is no astronomical phenomenon which

has

> a 7-day cycle. The shortest is the lunar cycle of approx 28 days

which

> can be split into two (sukla paksha and krishna paksha) of approx.

14

> days each. One could argue that going from there to a 7-day week is

> simply a matter of splitting that period further.

>

> One astrologer in Chennai who I asked the question to through my dad

> mentioned that at some point in the past, someone (sages?

astrologers?

> king?) fixed a particular day when the Sun was at its "peak"

> (exalted?) as the day ruled by Sun and the rest of the calendar then

> follows.

>

> While there might be some basis for this explanation, I find it hard

> to believe that inspite of the several calendar changes that we've

had

> over the history of civilization, the weekday count has been

> maintained consistently across cultures and continents. I do know

that

> atleast one calendar change (Julian to Gregorian? don't remember)

> explicitly maintained the weekday sequence. But how is it that the

> western calendar of today matches the Hindu calendar when both of

them

> most likely evolved independently?

>

> After spending several hours searching for an explanation, I

> "resolved" the problem differently. I no longer pay attention to the

> weekday when doing puja, etc. I go only by the tithi, which is

> astronomically verifiable. I use the tithi lordships indicated in

VAIA

> (and several other books I suppose). So if someone says "do this

puja

> on tuesday to propitiate Mars" I translate it to "do this puja on

> tritiya or ekadasi tithis to propitiate Mars".

>

> At a more psychological level, perhaps it doesn't matter really if

> there is any basis. As long as the person has faith that a

particular

> planet will be propitiated by doing puja on a particular day, I

> believe that they will get the desired effects irrespective of

whether

> that day is really ruled by that planet or not. But then, extending

> that logic, one could argue that the puja could be done on any day!

>

> I would like other learned members of this group and the Gurus to

> comment on this subject.

>

> Regards,

>

> Vinod

>

> vedic astrology, "luvpandit"

<rajneesh_vs@h...>

> wrote:

> > Adarniye Guruvar avem Mitragan,

> > I came across this question and have not been able

to

> > find any answer uptill now. So i thought of putting it here.

> >

> >

> > In astrology we are supposed to perform various activities like

> > Upavasa and Upaya(remedies) on some particular days like sunday

> > monday etc as each day is considered to be associtated with a

> > particular planet or Lord. Now the question is ...

> >

> > Do we have any particular method using which we can determine the

> day

> > of the week without using the month and the year information . or

> put

> > in other words how was the first day of these calender years

> > decided. ?

> >

> > I hope i could explain my doubt well and some of the learned

people

> > here would definetely be able to answer it.

> >

> > Thank You

> > Regards

> > Rajneesh Vashisht

[Guest guest]

Pranaam,

 

vedic astrology, "vishwanatham"

<vishwanatham@r...> wrote:

> If you can accept Mars as the tithi lord for ekadasi, i think you

can

> accept, Mars as the day ord for Tuesday as well!

 

I understand the way hora lordships determing the ruling planet for a

given day.

 

There seems to be circular logic in saying "Mars is the day lord for

Tuesday". As you mentioned, the day of the week is the result of the

lordship of the first hora in that day, not the other way around. So

we can say "such and such day is Tuesday because the first hora in

that day is ruled by Mars".

 

Anyway, I think I haven't communicated my question properly.

 

What we get from hora lordship is only the SEQUENCE of days. So if on

a particular day we start from the first hora after sunrise and

arbitrarily assign Sun to be the ruler of that hora, then it follows

that Moon rules first hora after sunrise on the next day, Mars the

next day and so on.

 

Now how can we decide which planet rules the first hora after sunrise

on a particular day WITHOUT referring to rulership on any previous

day? My point is that we cannot because it is not based on any

astronomical cycle.

 

To give a more concrete example, why do we say that "June 16, 2004 is

a Wednesday" or in other words, "First hora after sunrise on June 16,

2004 is ruled by Mercury"?

 

The explanation based on horas would be "Because the first hora after

sunrise on June 15, 2004 was ruled by Mars" or equivalently "Because

June 15, 2004 was a Tuesday".

 

Now how did we determine ruling planet for June 15, 2004? Once again

we have to resort to rulership on some previous day.

 

My question and the original poster's question is : when did this

count start and how was the rulership on that day determined?

 

I think resolving this question is very important because of the

emphasis placed on doing certain pujas/rituals on certain days based

on planetary rulership on that day. I also saw some people using the

planetary rulership based on weekday when making predictions or

analysing an event.

 

My point is that there is no astronomical cycle which has a period of

7 days. So the determination of planetary rulership is completely

arbitrary. But once we fix the rulership for a particular day, the

rest of the days are fixed in relation to that day. That is, we cannot

determine that planetary rulership for a particular day without

referring to rulership on some other day.

 

The other issue here is the question of changing calendars. Are we to

assume that the weekday counting has continued uninterrupted from time

immemorial inspite of the numerous changes in calendar systems in use?

How come the weekdays in the various calendar systems in use today

(vedic, western, islamic, etc.) match up correctly? It would actually

be very educative to go into history books to see what people followed

in earlier times.

 

It is only because I have been unable to resolve these issues that I

resorted to using tithi to determine planetary rulership for a

particular day. Of coure this is also somewhat arbitrary because I

don't have any explanation for how tithi rulerships were assigned. But

I take such data as first principles which are not questionable, just

as several other dictums in astrology.

 

Using the principle of "Occam's razor" I try to find "solutions" that

require the least number of assumptions. If I use tithi's to decide

lordships, I only have to make one assumption, namely the assigned

lordships for various tithis. But if I go by weekday, I have to make

several more assumptions including one about the count being

maintained without breaks over millenia, which I find difficult to do.

 

I hope I have been able to make myself clear.

 

As I mentioned in my previous email, the question might be of purely

academic interest when it comes to doing puja/rituals for propitiation

of certain deities. After all if a person does puja on a particular

day believing that it will propitiate a certain deity and has faith in

what he/she is doing, I believe that he/she will get the desired

results.

 

I would greatly appreciate if any of the Gurus could shed some light

on this matter.

 

Sincerely,

 

Vinod