Re:An Important Matter

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Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjyaRe: [WAVES-Vedic] RE: Fwd: An Important Matterwaves-vedic Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 3:19 PM

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Shri Kaulji,

 

Namaste,

 

1) It is wrong to say rashis are non-Vedic

 

This is because the "rashis' are mentioned in the puranas including the Bhagavat purana and the rashis came to be used only towards the end of the Dwapara yuga ie. towards the end of the 4th Millennium BCE. I am sure you know that the Valmiki Ramayana of the Treta yuga mentions the position of the Moon in a particular nakshatra at the time of the birth of Lord Rama. But the Adhyatma Ramayana, composed by Vedavyasa in the Dwapara yuga, mentions the position of the Sun in Mesha rashi at the time of Lord Rama's birth. You also know from the Chandogya upanishad that purana is considered to be the fifth Veda. So it is wrong to say that "Rashis" are non-Vedic. You must be aware that reading of this fifth Veda is a prerequisite for reading the four Vedas.

 

2) It is wrong to say that rashis are imported from Babylonia.

 

This is because the rashis have been used in India in the 4th Millennium BCE. You date of Varahamihira is also wrong as in Varahamihira's time Saka kala was not there . Sakakala, which Brahmagupta calls Shakanta kala, came at the end of the Shaka rule in 78 CE. Varahamihira mentions Shakendra kala, which was at the beginning of the Shaka rule Therefore my request to you is that kindly revise your Rotary document immediately.

 

3) Your argument towards Nirayana versus Sayana needs revision too.

 

This is because the "Rashi" by definition means a group. You can check that in your favourite Monier-Williams. Rashis are a group of Nakshatras. To the ancient jyotishis the twelve clusters of nakshatras in the ecliptic appeared like different figures. For example, the Vrashabha rashi appeared like a bull. This they did that by imagining some lines joining the nakshatras within the rashi. It is true that an unimaginative person may not be able to visualise the shape or form, but the nakshtras within the rashis are very real. In olden days the jyotishis were not like the arm-chair jyotishis of today. They determined the positions of the grahas and nakshatras through the naked eye. They could tell which graha was in which nakshatra and rashi. Today this system is termed as Nirayana. In olden days the seasons occurred in different rashis at different times due to the precession of the earth. Madhu and Madhava etc. occurred

at different nakshatras and rashis at different times. You know that Varahamihira too indicated this.

 

Further the western jyotishis concentrated their attention on the Tropical Zodiac system and imagined the fake rashis. (Please refer to the definition of rashi). However the Indian jyotishis did not give up the link between their jyotish and the nakshatras and the true rashis but they gave up observing the grahas and the nakshatras with the naked eye. So they wanted the measure of precessional shift, called "Ayanamsha" to correct the Tropical Zodiac positions of the grahas so that they can relate the corrected graha positions to the positions of the non-moving nakshatras. As the Tropical Zodiac shifts according to precession it is called Sayana (sa= with, ayana= movement) or with precessional shift. The non-moving Zodiac, ie. the original