Ishwardas RE: [HinduCalendar] The Significance of the Spring Equinox and Kali Yuga

[Guest guest]

Shri Ishwardas

ji,

Namaskar!

Your scholarly

and carefully worded post is a pleasure to read and deal with!

 

In a different

post, I have mentioned it somewhere that it appears that all the four cardinal

points, viz. the two equinoxes and two solstices had an equal importance at one

or the other point of time in the Vedic period. Thus your statement that

sometimes the solar year started with Uttarayana and sometimes with the Vasant

Sampat is quite correct.

 

You must have

observed that we always celebrate (actually must celebrate!) the lunar new year

before the solar new year! It gives a wrong impression that

the lunar New year has a preference over the solar new year! No it

is not so. The fact of the matter is that the lunar new year is named as

vasanti navratra or sharadiya navratra! That means it will start only

after Vsanta ritu or Sharad Ritu has started! And that is a phenomenon

created by the sun! When the sun enters the month of Madhu, it is the start of

vasanta ritu. The first new Moon after that is the Vasanti

Navratra! As such, you can say that if there had been no vasanta ritu,

there would have been no vasanti navratras either! Similarly, with the

ingress of the sun into the month of Urja, Sharad Ritu starts. It is the first

new moon after that which is known as the start of the Sharadiya navratras!

Thus the sun

gains an “upper hand”.

 

What perturbs me

most, and what should perturb every Hindu equally, is that these days we

celebrate neither Vasanti Navratras nor Sharadiya navratras, for that matter

any other festival, whether solar or lunar, on correct days! It is all

because of the Ayanamsha confusion created by Lahiri and Lahiri jyotishis, who

call themselves Vedic jyotishis!

 

For example, the

sun enters the month of Madhu around February 20 these days. Every

Panchanga, including the Rashtriya Panchanga, in any language, mentions

clearly that it is the start of Vasantu Ritu. Naturally, Vasanti

navratras should have stated with the first new moon after that. But no,

we are asked to wait till it is the Lahiri Sun that enters Lahiri Mina Rashi.

It is only after that the first New Moon will be taken as the start of Vasanti

Navratra! And as everybody knows, Lahiri sun enters Lahiri Mina Rashi

around March 14 these days, that is about 25 days after the start of the real

Vasanta Ritu! Naturally, the first New Moon after that Lahiri sun in Lahiri

Mina will be away by about one month from the first New Moon after the start of

solar Madhu, the real Vasanta Ritu! It means that our Vasnati navratras

are off by one month! Same is the case with Sharadiya Navratras and every other

festival!

 

What is still

more perturbing is that we are just unaware of all such atrocities being

committed on us by these Lahiriwalas, including the Rashtriya Panchanga, simply

because we have a blind faith in our panchanga-makers, who are actually phalit

jyotishis or their clients!

 

Now about

Uttarayana lasting from one equinox to another:

Lokmanya Tilak

also has said in his “Orion” that the Uttarayana lasted from one

Equinox to another but as far as I remember, it was from Autumn Equinox

to Spring Equinox and not the other way round according to him. His

surmise appears to be more reasonable and logical since the Winter Solstice

would then fall in the middle whereas if we take Uttarayana from Spring Equinox

to Autumn Equinox, Winter Solstice is completely ruled out! However, the

VJ is quite categorical that the shortest day i.e. WS is the real start of

Uttarayana!

 

IMHO, there is no

reason to suggest some alteration in the period of Uttarayana ranging from

Winter solstice to Summer Solstice, at least not after about 1400 BCE, the

approximate date of the VJ. Technically, a period ranging from the shortest day

of the year to the longest day of the year is in complete agreement with the

phenomenon of seasons -- and worthy of being called Uttarayana. Our

commentators like Shankaracharya, Abhinav Gupta etc. etc. also have said

“Uttarayana -- when the sun turns uttara” and as everybody

knows, rather should know, sun really starts turning towards north on the WS

day after having gained the maximum southern declination till then!

 

Now coming to

your points regarding Uttarayana etc. being clubbed with Makar Rashi by Acharya

Abhinavgupta.

 

The Acharya

was one of the greatest yogis of all times of the tenth century AD in Kashmir. I have personally gone through all the

volumes of “Tantraloka” with a Sanskrit commentary by Jayaratha.

In a different

post recently, I have referred to Laghumanasa of Munjala. It was one of

the most important works of Hindu astronomy, and the only work which gave a

real “definition” to Ayanamsha -- that the calculated results

were to be adjusted to be brought in line with the observed positions.

Thus the Ayanamsha was to be subtracted from the Surya Sidhanta results to make

the calculated results of the solar transits coincide with that of the observed

Uttarayana, Dakshinayana etc. He suggested an amount of one arc-minute

per year from Shaka 444 AD. This is exactly opposed to what was practised, more

than about a thousand years later, by Ganesha Daivajnya, the author of Graha

Laghava! He advised that we should add Ayanamsha to planets observed as

per “Vedha” at the rate of one arc-minute per year from Shaka 444

AD! In other words, he put the cart before the horse!

Panchangamakers

of all over India

took to Grahalaghava like ducks taking to water since Grahalaghava is one of

the easiest karna-granthas to work with and anybody, knowing a bit of mathematics,

could calculate a panchanga accordingly! Thus Grahalaghava panchangas

became the rage of the day, forgetting about Laghumanasa etc. etc. This is

exactly what made N C Lahiri dovetail his Lahiri Ayanamsha to Grahalaghava

since people were addicted to that ayanamsha then. His Ayanamdha in the

1940s is hardly different from Grahalaghava Ayanamsha by more than half a

degree! Since he knew astronomy, he took to the actual rate of precession

from that date onwards, i.e. from about 1940, he started decreasing the

Sayana longitudes at the rate of about 53 arc-seconds per year further as

against the Grahalaghva ayanamsha of 60 arc-seconds per year.

 

Coming back to

Acharya Abhinvgupta clubbing Uttarayana with Makar Sankranti, this is what

Alberuni has said on page 367 of Alberuni’s India --Vol I,

“For Punjala (read Munjala) the author of Small Manasa i.e. Laghumanasa,

says that in the year 854 of the Shakakala the real solstice preceded his

calculation by 6 degrees 50 minutes and that this difference will increase in

future by one minute every year.

 

“These are

the words of a man who either was himself a most careful practical observer, or

who examined the observations of former astronomers which he had at his

disposal, and thereby found out the amount of the annual difference. No

doubt, also other people have perceived the same or a similar difference by

means of the calculation of the noon-shadows. Therefore (as this observation

was already much known) Utpala of Kashmir has taken this theory from Punjala”.

 

Alberuni is

referring to the same Utapala who became known as Bhatotpala, since his full

name was Utpala and Bhat his sir-name! He has written commentaries on

Brihat Samhita and other works.

 

What

Alberuni’s statement indicates is that Kashmir

was following system of observed positions i.e. Vedha already. Thus

Kashmiri astronomers were already subtracting from the calculated results of

Surya Sidhanta the difference of “Ayansmha” so as to make them

tally exactly with the observed positions!

 

 

 

That means Makar

Sankranti and Uttarayana or Dakshinayana and Karka Sankanti etc. were one and

the same thing for Kashmiri astronomers.

And no wonder

Acharya Abhinavgupta also adopted the same nomenclature.

 

(Much to the

dismay of real scholars, Kashmir also started making panchangas as per

Grahalaghava and/or Makaranda (another karna gantha of Grahalaghava ilk!) over

the last couple of centuries and since 1990s as per Lahiri ayanamsha, as

against what Utpala and other early Kashmir

astronomers had been doing. Thus you can see the results for

yourself! Hindu monarchy was abolished in Kashmir, like in the rest of

the country, and Kashmiri Pandits were the worst sufferers since they

were made to lose their dharma -- by celebrating Pitramavsya on the day

of Dipavali -- by their worthy panchanga-makers of today---and Pandits

have become refugees in their own country!)

 

 

 

If you peruse

BVB6.doc in files section of this forum, I have referred to more or less

similar asseverations of Acharya Abhinavgupta as pointed out by you in support

of my contention that we are celebrating all our festivals on wrong days!

 

However, there is

a fly in this ointment of clubbing Uttarayana with Makar Rashi/sankranti and

Vasant Sampat with Mesha Sankranti etc. In around tenth century AD, the

difference between the observed positins and the SS calculated positions of the

sun were not more than about 7 degrees. As such, when the Vernal Equinox

was clubbed with Mesha Rashi, it was simultaneously fixed with Ashvini nakshatra!

i.e. Mesha Sankranti, Vasant Sampat (Vernal Equinox, and the start of Ashvini

nakshatra became one and the same thing! Thus what had been advocated by the

Surya Sidhanta in about second century AD, was continued in the tenth century

AD as well, since nobody ever doubted the “integrity” of the SS as

it was supposed to have been revealed by Surya Bhagwan. Clubbing the three

together is impossible astronomically! Vernal Equinox keeps on “precessing”

whereas the constellation Aries and the nakshtra Asvhini (or Ashvini star) are

not subject to precession! It may sound strange on the face of it but it

is actually so!

 

Astronomically,

actually, when we say that the stars have precessed, what we mean to say is

that since we are taking the Vernal Equinoxo point of the zodiac and since the

Vernal Equinox has precessed, the measurement of stars has undergone a change

in the position, from one epoch to another!! Stars are more or less

“stationary” and since constellations and nakshatras are a

haphazard grouping of stars, may be trillions upon trillions of them, they i.e.

constellations and nakshatras remain comparatively “fixed”. That

is why Acharya Yaska also had said something like “na ksharati iti

nakshatrasm” i.e. the ‘bodies’ that do not deviate from

their places are known as nakshatras in his “Nirukta”.

 

We know that

stars have two types of motion, one is an implied “precession” and

the other is Apparent motion. The former is also known as mean motion and

the latter as True motion. The Apparent or True motion is actually the

motion of one star as compared with another, in this case the motion of rest of

the stars as compared to the sun-earth combine.

 

Since precession

of equinoxes (and even solstices etc.!) has a direct impact on the earth, some

of the stars become “invisible” after a few thousand years.

For example, a few thousand years back, the star Sirius (Lubhaka) was a marker

for floods in the Nile but it is no longer so. That means that in the

past it was visible with the onset of rains in Egypt by coming out of combustion

of the sun during that time, but later on it became “invisible”

during that time. Even the much talked about Pole Star keeps on

changing! The Yogavasishtha has said, in its inimitable style,

“dhruvo api adhrvatam gatah” – even Dhruva is not actually

dhrvua i.e. even a star like Dhruvtara, supposed to be permanent, is not

actually ever lasting.

 

Thus the

condition that Mesha Sankranti can always be clubbed with Vernal Equinox and

Ashivni nakshatra is astronomically just not feasible. This will be

evident from the Stars tables on this forum. The Vernal Equinox is these

days in actual conjunction with Purva-Bhadra-II star and technically speaking,

that star belongs to an entirely different sign that Mesha Rashis or Aries

constellatin!

 

As such, we have

to, willy-nilly, forget about clubbing so called Sayana Rashis either with

Uttarayana etc. or with nakshatras!

That means that

we have to go by the Vedanga Jyotisha calendar --- Madhu, Madhava etc. months,

and Krittika etc. nakshatras! Nowadays, maybe Madhu, Madhava etc. months

and Purvabhadra etc. nakshatras.

 

This is the only

way when we can keep our calendars aligned to the seasons and nakshatras and

that is what you mean by “agriculture”.

 

As already

mentioned in a different post, the Rashtriya Panchanga is playing a very very

cruel joke on all the Hindus when it clubs an artificial Chaitra with the

Spring Equinox! It should actually have been Vaishakha and that also, to

the exclusion of any another solar Vaishakha! There are actually countless

Vaishakhas going on thee days! RP itself starts one Vaishakha on April 12

another on April 14 and then another one on April 21 whereas the real

Vedic (solar) Vaishkha has been obliterated by the RP and all the other

panchangas, as it should actually have started on March 21! Thus a time will

come when instead of the real Vedic Vaishakha of Mach 21, the RP will start it

on the day of Summer Solstice. (Please see Rashi5.doc).

 

To sum up this

long post, when the astronomers (read sidhanta and panchangamakers) of India knew hardly

any astronomy they clubbed Meshaarambha-bindu with Vernal Equinox as well the

Ashvini nakshatra, which means virtually Ashvini Star and it continued at the

time of Acharya Abhinavgupta. The same panchanga-ganita is continuing even

today, with the only difference that these days, most of the astronomers like

N. C. Lahiri etc. are doing it deliberately -- hurtling the entire Hindu

society towards adharma!. Now that we know a bit of astronomy, it is for people

like you to revolt against all such Lahiris and RPs who compel us to get

literally uprooted from our real Vedic and even cultural roots!

 

I hope I have

clarified your doubts to some extent.

With regards,

A K Kaul

 

PS I have

already had a long and even a “heated” argument on this forum about

Kali Era being an imaginary era and without any astronomical foundation.

In any case, I will discuss it further at a later date.

AKK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HinduCalendar [HinduCalendar ] On Behalf Of Ishwardas

Sunday, June 17, 2007 7:21 PM

HinduCalendar

[HinduCalendar] The

Significance of the Spring Equinox and Kali Yuga

 

 

 

 

 

Namaskar

 

1. On the basis of prehistoric monuments such as New Grange in

Ireland, Stonehenge in England and Goseck in Germany we know that,

from about 5000 BC, the Winter Solstice enjoyed great importance in

Ancient European cultures.

 

However, the Nebra Disc found near Goseck suggests that the Spring

Equinox may have been equally important at least for agricultural

reasons if nothing else.

 

The following parallels may be drawn from the Indian tradition.

 

Shri Abhinavaguptacharya in his Tantraloka (Ahnika VI) says that

Uttarayana (the sun's progression towards the North) covers the

constellations from Capricorn to Gemini. However, he also says

that, " Having passed through three transits, the sun reaches Aries

where a particularly auspicious moment occurs, namely, the [spring]

Equinox. The Equinox is the source of Siddhis. It is the most

propitious time of the year for purposes of worship, etc. "

 

He also compares a cycle of 12 years to the 12 months in a

year " beginning with Chaitra " . This suggests that, although

Uttarayana might have begun with the Winter Solstice, the solar year

started with the month of Chaitra - and with the Spring Equinox. This

fact was recognised by the Indian Government back in 1957 when it

introduced the reformed calendar which remains the official calendar

to this day.

 

Apart from agricultural and astronomical considerations, what might

be the religious and spiritual reasons that make the Spring Equinox

so important? If the sun's Northward Path or Uttarayana begins on

Winter Solstice (22 December) and ends on Summer Solstice (21 June)

then the Vernal Equinox (21 March) represents the midpoint of the

Northward Path. Perhaps the Equinox symbolized a kind of spiritual

junction which allowed man to gain entrance to the spiritual world of

the Gods.

 

After all, as the Shatapatha Brahmana says, Spring, Summer and Rains

represent the Gods, and Autumn, Winter and the Dewy Season represent

the Pitris. Accordingly, the division of the year would have been

along equinoctial rather that solstitial lines. Thus the first half

of the year would have been Vasanta, Grishma and Varsha and the

second half would have been Sharada, Hemanta and Shishira.

 

In that case, the original Uttarayana might have been the period

between Spring Equinox and Autumn Equinox. This would have been the

Upanishadic Path of the Gods (Devayana) leading to Brahmaloka or to

the mysterious " Northern

Land " , the

Uttarakuru (= Svarga?) of the

Mahabharata.

 

In any case, it seems natural enough to celebrate New Year in Spring

when the changes in daylight are clearly visible to all, new

vegetation begins to grow, the harvesting of the crops has been done

and people have a bit of spare time and spare money to celebrate. In

contrast, the Winter Solstice is hardly noticeable to anyone except

to minorities like astronomers.

 

And of course our calendar does begin in Spring already, only that as

has been pointed out it is out of sync with the Equinox and, in the

course of time, with the seasons.

 

2. Regarding the beginning of Kali Yuga we cannot reasonably exclude

the possibility that the year 3102 BC is part of an ancient time-

keeping tradition. After all, a sophisticated civilisation like that

of Ancient India must have had its own calendar.

 

That the date of 3102 BC could not have been arbitrary but was based

on some historical event or chain of events is evident from the fact

that it matches similar dates known from other traditions (Ancient

Egypt, Latin America, etc.). Perhaps worldwide

climatic and other

changes gave rise to the concept that a new era had begun which in

comparison to earlier times represented a deterioration in the world

situation.

 

The fact that much of the world including India itself has fallen

under the influence of spiritual ignorance, materialism, selfishness

and repressive religions entitles us to conclude that there is a

considerable amount of truth in this tradition.