Fwd: Parochialism versus Hindu Calendar!

[Guest guest]

HinduCalendar , " Avtar Krishen Kaul "

<jyotirved wrote:

 

Dear Pathma,

Namaskar!

Many thanks indeed for the prompt response!

 

Your have said

<I think we have all contributed what little we know.>

 

There is a minor correction in my earlier post and it is: instead of

" This forum has as on date 260 members out of which hardly one per

cent are participating in the discussion of reforming the calendar! "

pl. read it as " This forum has as on date 260 members out of which

hardly TEN per cent are participating in the discussion of reforming

the calendar! "

 

Secondly, that post is mainly addressed to fence-sitters, who jump

into the fray only when some highly controversial topic not related to

Hindu Calendar even remotely is introduced! They just remain silent

spectators otherwise.

 

 

<We have already made a decision that there is no astrology or

predetermination in Hinduism. Lets stick with that and move on.>

 

As far as debunking " Vedic astrology " is concerned it is a situation

that has been brought upon the entire Hindu community by " Vedic

astrologers " themselves since they are the ones who decide and prepare

Hindu calendars/panchangas through Positional Astronomy Centre,

Kolkatta, or on their own otherwise. It is already on record that they

have not been able to do any good to the nation in any way whatsoever

through their predictive skills, but they are doing a lot of harm in

making the entire Hindu society to cling to Mesha, Vrisha etc. rashis,

whether so called sayana or so called nirayana.

 

We cannot wish them away and they have therefore to be taken head on.

 

<Since the nakshatra divisions are not too important to us, let us

proceed with the months and number of days in each month.>

 

Regarding nakshatra divisions, I tried to find out the logic the

Vedanga jyotisha had in dividing the nakshatras into 27 equal

divisions, but I have not been able to arrive at any conclusion,

especially since the two stars viz. Chitra and Swati are quite close

to one another---less than a degree apart! On the other hand, Ardra

and Punarvasu are away by 22.5 degrees from one another!

 

Could it be that the Star names that are being attributed to

respective divisions today were actually different during that period

or is something else the real problem.

 

The star names being used these days are as per the ones given in the

Surya Sidhanta, and they have not been changed. It is a moot point as

to how far those names were correct and by whom they were attributed

to the respective nakshatra divisions in the Vedas and when.

 

I wonder if any member can throw any light on the same.

 

<The new tamil calendar has the birth of Tiruvalluvar as the starting

date. What is your proposed starting date? The birth of Buddha? Or

Mahavira? Or a certain alignment of stars? Or use the same existing

calenders, viz Kaliyuga, Saha, but adjusted for leap years?>

 

Regarding you point about the starting date of the new era, it is

futile to club it with any personality, especially the ones of hoary

past about whose actual date of " Avatara " nobody is sure! To the best

of my knowledge, we have never had any such system in India--like we

never had any Shri Krishna Samvat or Shri Rama Samvat etc. Even the

Budha Nirvana and Mahavira nirvana years are being disputed and

questioned.

 

Kali era is as useless and baseless as the " Vedic astrology " itself,

since it has absolutely no verifiable criterion i.e. the mean

longitudes of all the planets were zero at a particular point of time

about 5100 years back. Same is the case with Saptarshi era.

 

The most ancient indigenous astronomical work that is around these

days is the Vedanga Jyotisha. It has a lot of astronomical details

which are verifiable. WE may not be able to pinpoint the exact year

as to when it was compiled, but we will not be far from the truth

either if we say it was around 14th century BCE. With Vasishtha.exe

program in the files section of the HinduCalendar forum, the year when

the Winter Solstice was in exact conjunction with Danishtha Star can

be easily ascertained. We can take it as the start of an era and name

it as VJ Era. I do not think anybody will have any objections to the

same.

 

Regarding the start of the new Solar Year, it can be either Winter

Solstice or Vernal Equinox. Since Vernal

Equinox---Vaishakha/Meshadi/Vaishakhi----is already being celebrated

as the new solar year throughout India, it will not be very difficult

to " shorten " it by 24 days---bring it to March 21/22, instead of April

14/15, by trying to convince the general public that it is just an

exercise like Gregorian calendar---making October 6 as October 16!

 

Regarding lunar new years, there are already two navratras---vasanta

and sharadiya---and we can continue with them, with the only

difference that they will be aligned to the seasons (the VJ calendar)

instead of to Lahiri solar months.

 

About leap years, I have made it already clear several times that in

the real Vedic calendar, there is not any leap year as no Vedic month

has 28 days which have to be upgraded by one day every four years!

Regarding the start of the solar month, different states have

different criteria---some states take it as " mmdhya-ratri " others at

" sunrise to sunrise " and so on. We can align the starting dates to

Gregorian dates as per the actual timings of solar transits---making

Central Station of India as the focal point. That means that if it is

at 12-0-01 am (midnight) IST of Gregorian date for a solar ingress, it

will be taken as the next date but the earlier one otherwise.

 

In one of my earlier posts, I had asked the members to give their

opinions about the duration of various months vis-a-vis the two

solstices and equinoxes. It is clear by now that in ancient days,

Vedic Rishis did not resort to dividing ecliptic into 360 degrees and

then take the duration of every month as solar transit of every thirty

degrees---the system followed in Western countries these days, on the

basis of Greco-Chaldean astrology. Vedic Seers could find the timings

of the two solstices and equinoxes and then divide that duration in

time between one Solstice and Equinox by three to determine the

starting date of the next month. For example, the September Equinox

(Vedic month of Urja and solar Kartika)of 2008 took place on September

22, 2008 at 15-46 hrs. (TDT) whereas the December Solstice (Vedic

month of Tapah and solar Magha) will take place on December 21 at

12-05 hrs (TDT). Instead of trying to find the ingress of the Sun

into Greek constellations/Rashis of Scorpio, Sagittarius etc. I think

the best way is to divide the time-gap between these two phenomena

viz. September Equinox and December Solstice in decimal days by three

and find out the exact timings of the Vedic months Sahas (solar

Agrahayana/Margasheersha) and Sahasya (solar Pausha)!

 

Of course, all this is loud thinking and subject to peer review!

With kind regards,

Avtar

HinduCalendar , " Pathmarajah Nagalingam "

<beastmy@> wrote:

>

> Vanakkam,

>

> I think we have all contributed what little we know. We are wasting

> time refuting queries from 'astrologers'. We have already made a

> decision that there is no astrology or predetermination in Hinduism.

> Lets stick with that and move on.

>

> There is no question that the various Indian calendars are in gross

> error, and we need a new accurate one that self corrects itself.

>

> Since the nakshatra divisions are not too important to us, let us

> proceed with the months and number of days in each month.

>

> The new tamil calendar has the birth of Tiruvalluvar as the starting

> date. What is your proposed starting date? The birth of Buddha? Or

> Mahavira? Or a certain alignment of stars? Or use the same existing

> calenders, viz Kaliyuga, Saha, but adjusted for leap years?

>

> Pathma

>

>

>

HinduCalendar , " jyotirved " <jyotirved@> wrote:

> >

> > Dear All,

> >

> > Namaskar!

> >

> > When I was about to start this HinduCalendar forum, I toyed with the

> idea of

> > naming it as " Indian Calendar " or even " Vedic Calendar " forum.

> However, on

> > second thoughts, I dropped that idea and named it as

HinduCalendar. The

> > reasons are simple: I wanted it be a forum for Hindus whether they

> were/are

> > Vedic or Pauranic or Shaktas and so on or even agnostic! Similarly,

> it is

> > immaterial whether they are from North or from South etc. etc. It

> does not

> > matter much if they were/are even atheists---since I have no

> intention nor

> > am I qualified to convert anybody to any other way of thinking---so

> long as

> > they believe in celebrating festivals!

> >

> >

> >

> > I had and still have no doubts that Hindu is a universal term

> applicable to

> > at least 80 per cent of Indians, even if they are nowadays

> NRIs---which some

> > people interpret as " never returning Indians " .

> >

> >

> >

> > To the best of my knowledge, from times immemorial, Hindus had been

> > celebrating festivals in accordance with the seasons, like most of

> the other

> > communities of the world. All the calendars have some modicum of

> > common-sense and universal applicability. Over the last several

> centuries,

> > however, the dates of Hindu festivals had got de-railed completely

> as they

> > had got de-linked from seasons. It took me a lot of study and

> research and

> > efforts to arrive at the conclusion as to why it had happened so.

I was

> > helped to a great extent in my research by works like Bharatiya

> Jyotisha by

> > S. B. Dikshit, Report of the Saha Calendar Reform Committee and

> translation

> > of Panchasidhantika by Prof. Sarma (Adyar edition) etc. etc.

besides, of

> > course, Vedanga Jyotisha, the Puranas and the sidhantas themselves.

> >

> >

> >

> > Since I never consider myself a master of any subject, I therefore,

> wanted

> > to discuss this issue of calendar reform freely and frankly on this

> forum so

> > that I could remove my own cobwebs and misunderstandings, if any,

> about my

> > own conclusions by such discussions. And I must put on record

that the

> > discussions with several members have proved quite fruitful.

> >

> >

> >

> > Through all those discussions on this and other forums, it dawned on

> me by

> > and by that there was a direct conflict between " Vedic astrology " and

> > reforming the Hindu Calendar! Hindu calendar does not need any

> Mesha etc.

> > Rashis whereas " Vedic astrology " cannot survive without them---that

> also so

> > called nirayana rashis! An easy way out was to to a so

called

> > Sayana Rashichakra, which I did for quite some time but it dawned on

> me very

> > late in the day that even that was anything but Vedic---since there

> are no

> > Mesha etc. Rashis in the Vedas or the Vedanga Jyotisha etc., it was

> > meaningless to talk of the Vedas having Sayana rashis and so on!

> >

> >

> >

> > This forum has as on date 260 members out of which hardly one per

> cent are

> > participating in the discussion of reforming the calendar! Quite

a few

> > other members, who participate in discussions at all, are more

> interested in

> > either proving their " Vedic astrology " skills!

> >

> >

> >

> > Of late, a tendency has developed in some of the members to talk in

> > parochial terms! I can understand that being born as a Kashmir

> Brahmin, I

> > must and will defend that culture to the best of my capacity and

> capability.

> > I also know that if I had been born in Maharashtra, perhaps I

would have

> > been worse than some of the fanatics there. Similarly, if I had been

> born in

> > Tamil Nadu, maybe I would have made it a point to prove that I am the

> > " original inhabitant " of Bharatavarsha whereas the rest are all

> > " infiltrators " .

> >

> >

> >

> > But the question that is begging an answer is: Whether I am from

> Tamil Nadu

> > or from Gujarat or Kashmir or from any other part of India, for that

> matter,

> > I am an Indian first and then a Hindu and it is only after those two

> > " qualifications " that I can call myself a Kashmiri or Tamilian and

> so on.

> > It will be otherwise like putting the cart before the horse!

> >

> >

> >

> > And since all the Hindus from whichever corner of the globe they

> are, must

> > have a uniform calendar---like Uttarayana (start of solar Magha) has

> to be

> > on the shortest day of the year, Vasanta Sampat (solar Vaishakha) on

> the day

> > when day and night are equal and so on for all the Hindus, it is

> high time

> > that we concentrate on the job for which this forum is

> meant---streamlining

> > the Hindu calendar!

> >

> >

> >

> > You can well imagine as to what type of a mockery it will be of our

> culture

> > if on the one hand we claim that we claim that we are the

descendants of

> > Rishis like Kashyapa, Vasishtha, Vishvamitra, Vamadeva or Agastya

> and so on,

> > but at the same time we do not know when to celebrate Uttarayana or

> > Dakshinayana or Pongal or Malayalam New Year etc. actually! It means

> we are

> > worse than the illiterate aborigines then---since they had a gut

> feeling as

> > to when it was going to be the shortest day of the year or when it

> would be

> > the longest day!

> >

> >

> >

> > What surprises me is as to why most of the members are just silent

about

> > this issue. The fact is that either we are celebrating our

> festivals and

> > muhurtas on correct days or on wrong days. If they think they are

> > celebrating them on correct days, naturally, they must have their

> logic and

> > reasoning, since all the members of this forum are highly qualified

> people.

> > Let them share their views with other members of this forum, and

> they can

> > rest assured that if those arguments are scientific and

scriptural, they

> > will definitely be taken into account and the entire theory/gamut of

> > calendar reform revised once again!

> >

> > This forum is not for fence sitters---it is a real

> brain-storming-exercise

> > for streamlining the Hindu calendar, if it is really wrong.

Either join

> > that discussion or just leave the forum!

> >

> > With regards,

> >

> > Moderator

> >

>

 

--- End forwarded message ---