Guest guest Posted April 15, 2009 Report Share Posted April 15, 2009 Dear all,Here is a write-up of Vinay Jhaji on the date of Suryasiddhanta for your perusal and comments.Regards,Sunil K. Bhattacharjya--- On Wed, 4/15/09, vinayjhaa16 <vinayjhaa16 wrote:vinayjhaa16 <vinayjhaa16 Dating the Suryasiddhaanta Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 5:43 AM To All: Suryasiddhanta' s first chapter says it was given by Lord Surya to Maya the Asura after the latter performed a great deal of tapasyaa, at the fag end of previous Satyuga, which was slightly before 2165109 years from now (add 52 years for excess of siddhantic year over Julioan). According to epics and Puranas, Maya is said to be founder of Jyotisha, vaastu shaastra, town planning, architecture, temple building, etc. Without Maya, Veda would have been blind, because sages eulogized Jyotisha as the eye of Veda. Hence, it is wrong to call Maya a mlechchha. Some asuras were mlechchhas, but the ancestors of all mlechchhas and asuras were Aryans, if we believe Puranas. Puranas say that mlechchhas were expelled from India due to their bad conduct. In koine Greek, the very word Europa etymologically meant "easterlies" , and 'European' would thus mean "those who came from the East". To moderners, Suryasiddhanta in Satyuga sounds absurd. They must find its date somewhere in the historical period before Varaha Mihira who eulogized Suryasiddhanta as being most clear ("spashta", cf. Panchsiddhaantikaa edited by Thibaut & Sudhakar Dvivedi) of all siddhantas, and even before Aryabhatta who is said to have written a commentary on Suryasiddhanta which is not available. This modern view is guided by a world view which is the dominant view of ruling elite in the world today. According to Burgess, Whitney had a firm opinion that Indians were incapable of inventing anything, while Burgess maintained that Indian astronomy was more ancient than Greek. But when it came to conclusions, Burgess had no difference with Whitney. Leave aside these ideosyncratic or culturally biased views, let us talk of facts. How can we fix the date of composition of Suryasiddhanta ??? Ujjain, 3 March : Comparison of Saayana Planets : Suryasiddhantic( Saur) and Physical (Drik) AD Method Sun Moon Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus Saturn 382 Drik 343:33:59 001:39:24 304:06:20 320:29:20 238:48:12 310:08:09 050:58:12 Saur 344:09:44 002:18:18 306:00:04 317:26:27 236:14:05 307:10:43 058:18:51 482 Drik 344:18:44 318:25:11 347:52:07 319:15:50 025:16:49 027:27:47 209:22:01 Saur 344:47:48 319:25:52 350:42:50 324:10:33 021:03:18 025:40:02 214:40:16 582 Drik 345:03:34 253:57:54 029:03:14 335:51:57 188:46:46 325:47:33 337:17:06 Saur 345:25:49 258:28:12 031:42:36 343:39:19 185:05:00 322:54:50 342:03:42 682 Drik 345:48:00 215:27:37 073:50:27 358:38:34 342:03:44 028:07:06 128:39:19 Saur 346:03:50 214:34:27 076:53:20 000:13:16 338:05:47 031:01:54 138:56:21 782 Drik 346:33:23 152:21:34 157:55:10 357:25:17 136:30:39 342:28:19 272:56:05 Saur 346:41:49 154:02:50 165:14:47 350:55:52 132:22:37 340:03:29 276:49:23 882 Drik 347:18:01 109:07:50 260:33:02 322:29:25 298:43:55 323:44:48 044:58:58 Saur 347:19:46 107:58:29 261:48:04 320:02:06 295:40:57 335:09:06 051:04:16 982 Drik 348:02:48 052:09:32 311:52:48 324:01:45 085:44:25 359:21:07 205:23:02 Saur 347:57:41 052:17:24 312:05:43 328:07:58 081:53:55 357:30:27 209:48:18 1082 Drik 348:48:22 000:17:10 355:34:55 341:21:32 253:17:16 302:24:10 335:41:00 Saur 348:35:35 000:24:57 356:47:17 347:45:54 251:39:09 301:33:34 337:05:04 The most obvious way is to check planetary positions. If we decide that Jupiter's position, for instance, should be the reference for which Suryasiddhanta' s dating ought to be calculated in comparison to the value given by physical astronomy, Saturn will show disagreements with physical astronomy by wide margins. If Saturn is fixed, some other planet will show intolerable divergences. I have devoted a whole chapter on this problem in my Hindi book on Suryasiddhanta which was published in 2005 and went out of print in 2006. Table on left hand side (from my book) shows the position of tropical planets at intervals of 100 years during the entire epoch which was considered to be the period of composition of Suryasiddha by scholars like Benteley or Burgess. Lower table shows the difference between Suryasiddhantic true planets from physical planets of modern astronomy for the period which all Westernerers consider to be period of composition of Suryasiddhanta. Comparison of Suryasiddhantic and Physical (Drik) Planets (seconds of arc) AD Sun Moon Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus Saturn 382 -2145 - 2334 - 6824 +10973 + 9247 +10646 -26439 482 -1744 - 3641 -10243 -17683 +15211 + 6465 -19095 582 -1335 -16218 - 9562 -28042 +13306 +10363 -17196 682 - 950 + 3190 -10973 - 5682 -21723 -10488 -37022 782 - 506 - 6076 -26377 +23365 +14882 + 8690 -13998 882 - 105 + 4161 - 4502 + 8839 +10978 -41058 -21918 982 + 307 - 472 - 775 -14773 +13830 + 6640 -15916 1082 + 767 - 467 - 4342 -23062 + 5887 + 3036 - 5044 The conclusion one can deduce from such a comparison is : there is no period in whole history (I've checked other periods too, which cannot be shown here due to space) for which Suryasiddhantic planetary positions can be brought to be within tolerable margins with respect to the planetary positions given by physical astronomy. Some people are adamant on taking Suryasiddhantic planets as physical bodies. If this be accepted, Suryasiddhanta must have a date for which ALL its planets, tithis, yogas, karanas, eclipses, etc ought to conform to the findings of physical astronomy within a margin of tolerable limits, say 1 degree (supposing ancient Indians could not make more precise observations) . What is that date ? Please show some date for which Suryasiddhantic planets could be made to conform to ALL physical planets. We will fail, utterly. That is why Bentely took a resort to devious means to get a date of 1091 AD, which is against historical evidences, as even Varaha Mihira is known to be acquainted with Suryasiddhanta and eulogised it as the best. Even Burgess had to say, in his commentary on Suryasiddhanta : "planetary elements, which, when tested by the errors of position, in the manner already explained, do not appear to have been constructed so as to give the true sidereal position at any assignable epoch". As Varaha Mihira eulogized Suryasiddhanta as the clearest of all siddhantas, why we should not check whether Suryasiddhantic planets could be made to conform to physical planets at the time of Varaha Mihira ? If we take Varaha Mihira's date as between 505-550 AD, above tables show thT Suryasiddhantic planets had differences ranging from -28042" to +15211" , ie, from -4.2 to 7.8 degrees during the century from 482 to 582 AD (greater differences were observed in intervening years) !! Was Varaha Mihira so dull as to neglect such huge differences ?? Above comparison is tropical. But sidereal comparison will yield similar results, with greater differences due to +2:59':22" difference in ayanamsha in 499 AD. Saur ayanamsha zero in 499 AD, Drik ayanamsha was zero in 285 AD, hence Drig ayanamsha was +3 degrees ahead of Saur ayanamsha in 499 AD which was the zero year for which Aryabhatiya was based. Sun's table shows a clear order which leads us to suspect that in 908 AD, tropical values of Saur and Drik Sun were same. If nirayana computations are made, the year of zero difference in Sun will be 782 AD. . Burgess gave a wrong value at 250 AD. But only Sun cannot be a criteria. If mean positions of all planets are compared, 2000 AD is the year of minimum difference, and such a date arrives after every 42000 years. Barring Sun, other planets do not give any result at all, due to undulating values of differences, which even Burgess noted. Burgess tried hard to understand Suryasiddhanta, but he could get only those pandits who were greedy of mone, and therefore could not get the help of those pandits who did not want to divulge their secrets to a Christian priest. Suryasiddhanta clearly says that all its secrets must not be given to all and sundry (in the end of two chapters). Most serious mistake of Burgess was his inability to understand the Suryasiddhantic tradition of beeja-samskaara. His secong error was a wrong method of making true planets out of mean planets, which is against laws of mathematics as well as against traditional Suryasiddhatic (Makaranda) tables which Burgess knew well but could not find their formulae and therefore published a wrong method. There are a lot of other mistakes in his commentary too, which have not been removed by later commentators, due to canonical prohibition on publishing all the secrets of Suryasiddhata. Another point is about Samanta Chandrashekhara. He changed values of Suryasiddhantic constants in order to get modern astronomical positions of planets. Had he succeeded, why some panchanga makers are not making panchangas on his lines ? The fact is thet whatever changes we make in Suryasiddhantic constants, we cannot make the planetary positions conform to physical planets due to fundamental theoretical differences. For instance, the four mandaphala and shighraphala samskaaras can never fit with modern astronomy. Mars can produce a maximum of 22:17" merely on account of its equation of centre. Another instance is planetary distances : Suryasiddhantic Sun is at a distance of 1/ 27.2 AU !! But Moon's distance is same as given by modern astronomy !! How can such a system fit with physical astronomy ?? Hence, if one wants the positions of physical astronomy, he/she will have t0 discard Suryasiddhanta completely. It cannot be reformed at all. But it is wrong to call it outdated, because if Suryasiddhanta is wrong today, it was more wrong in any period of the past. Nirayana mean values of Suryasiddhantic planetary positions have minimum "errors" for ~2000 AD !! Does it mean Suryasiddhanta was composed for 2000 AD ?? Comparison with physical astronomy gives impossible conclusions which cannot be resolved. If such a method is accepted, we must conclude that all ancient scholars were idiots who could not observe errors of over 10 degrees in planetary positions for long durations. But ancient evidence is opposite : Suryasiddhanta was eulogized as the best treatise for astrology, and those who observed physical stars and planets for astrological purposes were despised as nakshatra-soochakas !! This is the very meaning of "soochaka". All ancient texts say that astrological planets are divinities. And divinities can never be seen sensorily. The only proof of Suryasiddhana is an honest and sincere ASTROLOGICAL enquiry. Many members are already downloading Kundalee software to test the continuing astrological validity of Suryasiddhanta. Why take a single criteria, why not check all the planets ?? Why ?? The reason is simple. A single criteria is selected according to dating which fits in Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). Other facts need to be neglected, in order to save this AIT. Vedanga Jyotisha mentioned Maagha Shukla Pratipadaa as one of the conditions of uttarayana at the start of Dhanishthaa, which Colebrooke and all his "honest" followers deliberately neglected to mention, because they had to prove a date not before 1500 BC. Similarly, Varaha Mihira's verse-9 in Brihaspati-chaaraad hyaaya of Brihad-samhitaa is never analyzed for dating a concurreence when Prabhava samvatsara concurred with Brihaspati at the start of Dhanishthaa in Maagha month , because any sincere effort of finding such concurrences push the dates of Indian history into remote prehistory going back to hundreds of thousands of years. Hence, facts are neglected or distorted, and fictions are propounded as theories. As I said above, this modern view is guided by a world view which is the dominant view of ruling elite in the world today. But is this elite immortal ? How long truth about Vedas and Vedaangas, including Suryasiddhanta will be suppressewd or neglected ? The real Vedaanga is Suryasiddhanta and books of rishis like Parashara and Jaimini ; Mahatma Lagadha's books were not for astrologers, they were for Vaidikas who performed sacrifices. Our whole history has been written with an alien point of view, who "discovered" India according to their colonial and cultural interests. Instead of bickering about the date of Suryasiddhanta, if we sit down to test the astrological validity of Suryasiddhanta by means of freely available Kundalee software, we will have to accept that Suryasiddhanta is not a book of physical astronomy at all. It is actually the siddhantic bedrock of Vedic Astrology without which the mathematical basis of Tri-skandha Jyotisha will lose its fundamental skandha. If we do not want to learn Suryasiddhanta and abuse it, Suryasiddhanta will not teach us automatically. Jyotisha, besides human destiny, is not guided by physical planets, but by superconscious deities who cannot be propitiated by sapphire or diamond if our hearts are not pure. -VJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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