Truth of Lahiri's claim on Chitrapaksha

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Genesis of Citrapaksa

 

 

Citrapaksa Ra´sicakra today stands credited in the name of Late. Srī. Nirmal Chandra Lahiri and the Calendar Reform Committee due to some historical oversight on the part of those who have re-christened it in the name of Lahiri. How meaningless is such an accreditation can be understood from the following facts:

 

Þ Among Indian astronomers who have popularized the Citra's fiducial role, the name of V.B. Ketkar stands foremost. Ketkar himself has not claimed any credit for the concept in his work `Indian and Foreign Chronology' published in 1921. The following account of his work contains the historical details of the genesis of Citrapaksa zodiac.

 

® The modern astronomers, Mishra Nandramji (´Saka 1665), Jyotishroy Kevalaramji (´Saka 1651) of Jaipur, and Chandra Shekar Sinha of Cuttock, who were also skilful observers have adopted in their works, the AyanamśÄs determined from the observations of the distance of the star Citra from the autumnal equinox.

 

® Great scholars like Mahamahopadhyaya Sudhakara Dvivedi of Benares, Sriyuta Lalachandra ´Sarma of Jaipur and the late A.R.Rajaraja Varma, M.A., Principal, Sanskrit College, Trivandrum, have in their pamphlets strongly supported the course of fixing the first point of A´svini situated at 1800 from the bright star Citra.

 

® Sir William Jones, in Vol. IV of his works, says:

 

"The lunar year of 360 days (tithis) is apparently more ancient than the solar, and began, as we may infer from a verse in the Matsyapurana, with the month of A´svina, so called because the moon was at the full, when that name was imposed on the first lunar station of the Hindu Ecliptic, the origin of which, being diametrically opposite to the bright star Citra (i.e. Spica) may be ascertained on our sphere with exactness".

 

® Mr. Davis was a civil servant of the East India Company in AD 1790 at Bhagalpore. In one of his papers published in the second and third volumes of the "Asiatic Researches", Bengal, he says about the Hindu Ecliptic:

 

"Its origin is considered as distant 1800 in longitude from Spica, a star which seems to have been of great use in regulating their astronomy and to which the Hindu tables of the best authority agree in assigning six signs of longitude, counting from the beginning of A´svini, their first naksatra".

 

· As is the case with Calendar Reform Committee in later times Ketkar has also resorted to some false arguments to prove the point that Citra had a longitude of 1800 in the Hindu zodiac, the fallacy of which have been already demonstrated. Ketkar too knew the factors that caused the illusion of Citra's fiducial role as is evident from the following words:

 

"As regards the starting point the reform will not be a startling one. Because the epoch of the MesÄdi of the Suryasiddhanta for ´Saka year 1844, as calculated by sec.77, falls on April 13.312 and the true longitude of the sun for the same epoch, as calculated from Ketaki (2 cyc. 2200 days), is found to be 359.88. So the distance between the Citra counter-point and the, moving starting point which was 10 degrees in the beginning of Kaliyuga, is at present reduced to (–) 7 minutes only…"

 

According to Ketkar himself Citra counter-point and the moving zero point of Suryasiddhanta coincided only around ´Saka 1844 or AD 1922 [(-) 7 minutes]. As Ketkar had given an annual movement of 8", the year coincidence would have been precisely AD1870 and this result will nullify all other arguments that Ketkar had adduced in support of Citrapaksa.