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UNIVERSITY FOR VEDIC HINDUISM The Rishis of Himalayas meditated deeply on the “Supreme Secret” of creation the Origin of Creation, the birth of Man and aim of Human life ee et ter eee ek ee ern ken Man. They called this ‘VEDA’ the Eternal Knowledge. This was transmitted to all humans by the selfless efforts of the Sages Seers and Rishis. This is called “Sanathana ener Tet reer ee tea This gave the world “HINDUISM” in course of centuries. Slowly, all the other Religions were born - Zorastrianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam ete. with Set eer ae eee Cece! Ree eee ee Ce CoC OR Tee M CC a en CeCe Cord Seciemi coe inet eC eC er ec Ra Pere eet Stee tree tem eer SOR Ge eee ee Ween re Sh ORC ow ce Ce Oa RCC PM Pretans Stennett ore CRC Cee on where Dr. Vedavyas spoke on the “Message of Vedic Rishis for the Space Age”. Nn ee ee RL ROR Croce aC PRCT OMT CCC CNW On cee LLCO Renee he Coe Cn eco Coon CoCo Saree ere Cert Cece oc You are requested to contrinbute to the Corpus Fund as per your maximum capacity for this most worthwhile cause; The “PUNYA” carries you beyond this life across Death To God! Let us Invest in God! RPE OAC OEE ROR LOR eCe Pe RON R CORN ROA ‘VEDIC HINDUISM’ BELONGS TO ENTIRE HUMANITY 'Y. Sambasiva Rao ‘Sp. Officer rete ace Coa ty) University of Vedte Sctences Plot No. 56, Road No. 8, Jubilee Hi HYDERABAD - 500 033. etn) THE BOOK PEC CEU investigate into the exact Date when the ree On EEC RA Une “a Significant contribution to our Knowl- Pree SUP CO Doctorate in Sanskrit (Ph.D.) in The Andhra RSTO AC Tis OE Ue Cao een ree includiong Radio-Carbon Dating and As- Penn Uae ee ORL NOR eC RUSTON Cea eee LC dating when the War had commenced! oer aE a fee ere ECU en Fee a ts Se ORS of the Tradition of the Hindu “Panchanga” (Calender) from the Vedic Age till Aryabhatta: it includes also a RTA erro Tae co ae OC Coke te Cr CUE Shift in the Earth's Axis and the rise of een Oem Ue RO the global Cataclysm which altered the Calenders of the world, from Egypt to Lies eT eae ete ts Cr book throws up multi-disciplinary Re- search on the Date of Kali Yuga-Begin- ning which shakes up the existing Chro- nology of India. It also contains a rare emer a Chr SLU SE ener me CLIC e cuca eR CRC nero eri) Soren CMR a “bound to be a best seller”. H.H. Dalai Lama's Foreword is an added attraction! A masterly Research that makes Peet SA SCC er Re Cae surmise! Syren Coy 3 Soe Oe ae traditional Vedic scholars for seven genera- tions. He received early Initiation into Vedas, Lm es eT eur mere arr COC eee te eat SUCRE sa eRe Professor in Zoology in the Loyola College OCT RS oem eae ti Or EUP ay ECE ee Cae Cor nae Som eel er ae eee See UTS Sc og es ca LOR OCR e TY Se ee Reo ee RL eo UCR ces ae eed COMIC Cat ORS Oa To ene Amc Rel MRC ae een Sn ee Plate Grant of King Janamejaya” of ecm CULT Coe Re PEAS ORE ce ec Cara Author who had published 40 books in Vedas, Yoga, Astronomy, Hindu Religion COSCO ec creme Tet es ES Ce acre ee te ra CUES ERI eata ee eect Tie ae LeeLee DSO ea aC ear DIS ree a TCs ate DOR SE AME RcaT SCR Gort Brotherhood of America (Inc.)” to spread the Wisdom of the Rishies to the whole of CSL ioe ILO en) Ae em Pe Ce Rennes ECM eae eu eee) CC Ie me Tucan ome os CC ec ee er ey En Lae eA ea circle of Students and Yoga disciples. Ree LS eT COR UTS TCC L OME Ue Cute os mS ETT ar ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATHA WAR ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATHA WAR Dr. Vedavyas, 1.A.S., Ph.D. Founder President " Yoga Brotherhood of America" VEDAVYASA BHARATHI University of Vedic Sciences Sriparvatham, Gowripatnam, W. G. Dist., A.P., India. 1995 Price : First Published 1986 Second Edition 1995 © The Author FOR COPIES Secretary, USCEFI, Secretary, USCEFI, Plot No. 56, Road No. 8, Shop No. 58, Chandana Jubilee Hills, Cloth Complex, Tadithota, HYDERABAD - 500 033. RAJAHMUNDRY - 533 103. waener CONTENTS Foreword Preface Scientific Approach to Indian Chronology ‘The Science of Measurement of Time Vedic Origins Vedic Calender - Key to Vedic Chronology and Cosmology ‘Mahabharata War in India's History Approach to Dating the Mahabharata War Review of the Existing Literature .. The Time of Mahabharata War Mahabharata Chronology — Calendar of Main Events Astronomical References to the War Intemal Evidence of the Epic Kali Yuga— A Fictitious Forgery? Hindu Astronomy ~ Original or Borrowed? . Beginning of Kali Yuga— Astronomical Observations . Kings of the Kali Age — Chronology of the Puranas . History of India : The Puranas |. Chronology of the Yugas : Cycle of the Sapta Rishies . Sapta Rishi Cycle and the Chronology of Puranas . Date of Mahabharata War : Corroboration from Sanskrit Literature . Impact of Scientific Research on Chronology in Retrospect and Prospect . A Homage . Vision of Vyasa Appendix — 1 Appendix — II Appendix — 1H Appendix - 1V Epilogue Bibliography Index vii 16 32 49 58 116 123 155 174 184 196 215 222 280 294 296 299 310 321 322 341 344 VUP’] Ie] YIM JOyINy THEKCHEN CHOELING MCLEOD GANY 176219 KANGRA DISTRICT HIMACHAL PRADESH THE DALAI LAMA FOREWORD In the past when the world’s various Nations and Religions were more self- contained they were each content to recount their own histories in their own context, without any common mutual reference, In this modern age, however, as we leara more about each other, a need has arisen to produce a method for objectively dating Religious and Historical events. For example, even within the Buddhist tradition, there are a number of varying estimates as to the dates of Lord Buddha’s Life and teaching, which are a source of scholarly dispute. Thus, it would be very helpful if a Scientific method could be found to objectively Date historical events so we could clarify our understanding of their interrelationships and sharpen our Chronological perspective. The Author is to be commended for his work in this direction, as described in this book ‘Astronomical Dating of the Mahabharata’ and it is to be hoped that such a method of Dating may become widely accepted for the benefit of all. juve July 4, 1985 PREFACE Ours has been the age of great changes. In the field of space travel man has travelled to other planets. In the field of Physics man has split the atom, which was for a long time since the days of Dalton, held as indestructible. In the field of Biology too, the reversal of sexes has been witnessed. And also major transplantation of organs including the heart and kidney, has been registered. Great and diverse have been these sudden and basic changes in man’s thinking in different fields, but still, the greatest change has been in man’s Thinking itself! Nothing shocks a Civilization like a severe jolt to its own pet ideas, fondly held and believed as the so called “accepted theory” long held as unquestionable truth. Used even though, we are, to an age of changes and mutations—still, a radical shake-up to our ways of thinking jolts mankind’s age-old beliefs, particularly when these pertain to Mankind’s early history. For, the dating of many ancient civilizations is generally believed to be gospel truth. Gospel truth indeed! For, most of the dates of early histories of ancient nations like Egypt, China and India have been ‘fixed’ with the help of the Gospels in the sense that the date of Creation of the Bible propounded by Bishop Usher in the last country of 4004 B.C. formed the dogma which conditioned the thinking of early historians like Sir William Jones, Max Mueller, Weber and Buhler, to quote a few. No doubt ‘radicals’ like Professor Jacobi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak did exist, who even in those days attempted to fix the dates of ancient scriptures on a pragmatic basis with the help of Astronomical dating. But they have been only radicals: nothing more ! One is almost amused to see the elaborate attempts by other scholars to tone down the effect of the work of these scholars in shaking the foundations of the Gospel based Chronology. ‘The attempts were to soften the blows, the impact of the discoveries and to water down the effect of the disturbing discoveries, rather than to wake up to the universal fact—a general inadequacy of the basis for a correct chronology. Chronology as a Scientific discipline was long overdue. But the time has come, it appears, as it must sooner or later when new facts are everywhere discovered by Scientific Research, which are everyday dynamiting the basis of the once traditionally held dates and orthodox Chronologies, to which detailed references are made in the last chapter. These recent researches extend over a vast area of sciences, in fields which are divergent, widely separated from one author, which accumulated a vast body of x ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR evidence; of the changes that have occurred in the climate; of even a reversal in the order of Nature, around the third millennium before Christ. This is the time when “the sea parted” exposing land, in Moses’ time making it possible for Israelites to cross the sea. It is also the time when the present cosmic cycle called Kali Yuga commenced, according to Hindu Astronomy. The Kali Yuga Even the Hindus who know ‘Kali Yuga” only by name from Puranas and researches in History, Sanskrit and Indology ete, are not fully aware af the enormous global changes, of a cataclysmic nature that have visited the solar system, not only the earth, around 3100 B.C. which marked the close of the Jast Cosmic Cycle or “Dwapar Yuga” and during the so called ‘twilight’ period or Yuga Sandhi_ at which the present Kali Yuga commenced, This period is marked Astronomically by a heavy massing together of the planets on one side of the earth in the zodiac at one point in the solar system known as the ‘Zero-point’ of Mesha (Aries)—there by causing a great cosmic imbalance of so much gravitational pull on the Earth as to disturb its balance; its climatic zones and releasing glacial and tidal forces, besides volcanic and seismic action on a global scale. It marked a Cycle in nature which is only very recently being understood even in Science; a great cycle of Cataclysmic changes on the earth, Volcanic seismic and subterranean, Its signifi- cance lies in its impact on the Chronology of the World. The last body of evidence of these global changes on the Easth has been surveyed in the chapter entitled “The End ofa Yuga” froma scientific point of view. Kali Yugs in the Hindu Calendar The Hindu Calendar which is not written for any historical purpose but with the specific purpose of correctly determining the exact date and time on which, every Hindu depends from the Vedic pandit like the Sankarachatyas down to the common man who wishes to perform his religious rituals, like the birth, naming marfiage ceremonies and the obsequeies etc. is the Hindu Panchanga which is a seligious instrament, where historical fashions matter little compared to the need for correctly computing time—this is the base for scientific chronology. The Hindu Panchanga depends heavily on the Kali Yuga Era from which date, it calculates all other dates in the almanac and its elements including Tithi, Nakshtra, the unar month and Eclipses of the Sun and Moon which ate directly observable; the transists of major planets through the constellations, which the Hindu ‘Siddhanti as the Almanac maker in India is called, should directly observe. The Vedas call him “‘\Nakshatra Darsi”. In addition to the Hindu Panchanga and Chronology of the Putanas, many important inscriptions in history, a8 Epigraphy records, are also dated in terms of the ‘Kali Era’, That the Kali Era has been much maligned, is no excuse why the scientific basis of this Astronomical Historical era should not be reviewed and PREFACE xi cross-verified in the light of modern scientific, literary astronomical and other research. ‘Modern Astronomy claims many advantages. The availability of advanced of other disciplines like space travel, Astro-physics and Radio astronomy, all of which, can improve the findings of Astronomy. The difficulty again arises with accepted theories, even in this field, The origin of Hindu Astronomy is a point in question. The Astronomical elements of the Greeks and those of modern astronomers have been comparatively studied which reveal a shocking fact namely, that the elements of Hindu Astronomy are totally different! This has exploded the long sustained myth that Hindu Astronomy is derived from the Greek, and if this fails, from the Babylonian; at least Chinese astronomy. All this has to stand exposed in the light of new facts, or facts presented in a new light, by recent findings of Science. ‘A word in explaining the methodology of Astronomical dating may not be out of place here. Astronomy is an exact science depending on the movements of Sun, Moon and other planets in the ‘time circle’ in the sky known as the Ecliptic and the “Zodiac”. If a particular event is described with exact details in an ancient poem, of a celestial phenomena or an Astronomical event, it is possible to work backwards from the known rates of planetary motion and arrive at the exact date within the limits of Scientific experimental error. To illustrate the point—the Mahabharata describes the death of Bhishma as occuring on the day of Sun’s turning to the north or Urtarayana in the following verse -— “Shukla—Paskshasya Cha Ashtamyaam Maagha masasya pardhiva, Praaja patye—cha Nakshatrey Madhyam praptey Diwakarey”. It means that it was “‘on the day of Maga month, the lunar day being Ashtami or the 8th day; the star occupied by Moon being Rohini (Aldebaran) and the time of the day was noon (Madhyam Praptey), that Bhishma died. From the above description we get the exact date: as Sun occupying Dhanishta Star (Delphinus) which occurs in the Siderial Zodiacal Sign of Kumbha. The moon occupies Taurus of Vrishabha or Rohini (Praja-patya). From this, the month could be known very clearly as Magha. Ashtami the date can also be measured from the position of the Moon and also the exact rime of the day namely, noon! From Zodiacal positions at that time of the year we can see easily that at mid-day or at noon, the ascendant or Lagna happens to be Simha or Leo. Thus, the above sloka illustrates how the Astronomical method can be used to decipher the exact date of a past event from an ancient Sloka or poem. The same method has been employed earlier though not with the same exactness, for dating of the Vedas by B.G. Tilak and also of certain ancient dates in Egypt by well known Egyptologists xii ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR From the above illustration, it is easy to see how certain passages in the Mahabharata Epic which describe the position of planets, stars or the movement of the Sun northward or southward; or eclipses and comets could be used for chronologically fixing the date of the events described in these passages. Thus, the Astronomical references in the epic have chronological significance. The method of using Astronomical elements for measuring time is not isolated to the Mahabharata epic, alone. It has been shown by references from the Vedas and other Puranas in the succeeding chapters that the method of counting time by the passage of planets, sun and moon etc, is a very ancient system of Chronology. The daily Sankalpa which a Brahmin recited even today, after 5000 years of Kali Yuga, keeps up a daily count of the Nakshatra current on the day, the day of the week, the name of the month and also the Lunar Tithi besides the counting of the Yuga, Kalpa and the Manvanthara current, Recent scientific research has proved that there is a scientific basis behind the idea of “Cosmic Cycles” of time like the Manvanthara, Kalpa and Yuga, geological cycles roughly approximate to Manvantharas. Modern geology speaks about Tertiary and Quaternary ages besides Mesozoic age of the Reptiles in Zoology etc. which approximate to the Maha Yugas in the Puranas when gigantic creatures like Rakshasas roamed the earth. Even a study of the Chrono- logy of the Vedas and Puranas with its Yugas and Kalpas shows that these are ‘Cycles of time are planetary cycles basically! When two or more planets or celestial bodies come together at one point inthe sky, it marked one division of time. The method is universal. The visible cycle of time of 24 hours is a basic unit of time called ‘Day’ (Dina), which is divided into a night half and a day half and the whole ‘Clock of Time’ is divided into 12 divisions marked by 12 Zodiac Rasis. This division of the clock of time into the dial of divisions gave rise to our modern watches and clocks with its twelve-fold division of the 24 hour-day. The ‘year’ with 12 months and the 12 lunar months which are in turn, marked by the 12 full moons and new moons is also a similar planetary ‘cycle’. ‘When sun and moon appear to come together in one part of the sky, like the hour-hand and minute-hand in the clock of Time, they give rise to a separate Junar month. Similarly, another conjunction of sun and moon at the end of 12 months, gives rise to the next bigger division namely the ‘year. Similar ‘conjunctions of 4, 5, 7 and more planets in one division of the sky gives rise to the Yuga, Kalpa and other cosmic cycles. The cycle of the movement of Procession of the Equinoxes gives rise to the larger division which is roughly 26,000 years, which Plato calls Magnum Annus or the ‘Great year”. During this cycle, the polar circle of the earth and the celestial electro-magnetic couple under- goes a cycle. Modern Geology and Astronomy have proved the existence of Ice Ages called Glaciations followed by melting of the ice known as inter-glaciations. The Earth likewise, had its longer “summers” and its “winters” in the Great cycle ‘of 26,000 years, There is a very interesting passage in the Vishnu Purana in the story of PREFACE xiii Dhruva who performs’ Tapas when Lord Vishnu appears to him to grant the position of the pole star, when he says “you will attain the Dhruva-Pada after 24,000 years”. This passage reveals clearly that the story of Dhruva is connected with the changes of the pole-stars over 25,000 years. The astronomical references of Mahabharata, viewed against the above background of Vedic and Puranic planetary Chronology of reference to planetary positions are seen to be made to serve as indicators of time—Chronological Indicators. The present work is the result of long years of study, to trace the record in the Mahabharata for verification of references of Astronomical positions and cross-verification from many fields, like Geology, Astro-Physics, Biology, Astronomy, Radio carbon dating, Climatology and Ecology etc. which have a direct bearing on the method of counting time: to whit, ‘Chronology’ pertaining to the origin of the human civilization in general and of ancient scriptures in particular with a specific focus on one of the most fundamental dates in ancient history namely the Date of she Mahabharata War. This global war took place at the beginning of Kali Yuga; thirty-six years prior, according to the internal evidence of the Epic. The Astronomical references found in the Mahabharata Epic at diferent places, marking most of the major events in history which are recorded with Gstronomical detail indicating the time of the event have been surveyed; and their chronological effect on fixing the date of the War critically reviewed. The combined effect of the events on the dating of the War has been extracted and consolidated, basing chiefly on the internal evidence, without allowing myself to be prejudiced by the views of any external authority, however scholarly. Priority is given to the internal evidence of the epic regarding its own age rather than giving weightage to the discordant voices of modern authors and researchers, which are separately surveyed in another chapter. Then, the planetary positions marking the time of the beginning of the Mahabharata War, and also the position of the planets as they stood at the “Zero-Hour of the Kali Yuga” based on the description of the heavens at mid-night, 36-years after the war at the time of passing away of Lord Krishna have also been calculated. The relative significance of the views of authors regarding the planetary positions at the beginning of the Kali Era have been studied. The claims of the different traditions of Hindu Astronomical Systems have been compared by calculating the Planetary positions according to 18-Siddantas (or traditional Hindu Astronomical systems). And these, again were compared with the results of modern astronomy. The argument of back calculation of the date of Kali Yuga-Beginning from astronomical elements borrowed from the Greeks, has been critically reviewed, against the Comparative Tables of the astronomical elements of Hindu astronomy with those of modern astronomy and those of the Greek and Alexandrian school to reveal an often ignored fact, that the Hindu astronomical xiv ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR elements and methods are different ix origin from the Greek, Babylonian and modern astronomies. The “Cycle of Saptha Rishis” or the Great Bear bas been computed from the beginning of Kali Yuga for 5000 years. Also, the chronology of the Puranas for the Dynasties of the Kings of the Kali Age has been comparatively surveyed in depth against the Cycle, The position of the Seven Stars (Sapta Rishies) during the successive reigns of the ancient Kings of Kali Yuga have been tabulated and comparatively studied in the light of the Prophecies found in the Bhavishya Purana about “Future Kings of the Kali Yuga”—inciuding those Prophecies relating to Christ and Queen Victoria! This disposes off the argument of post- facto writing of the section of Prophecies in the Puranas. The results of these comparative studies have been cross-checked with the internal evidence from the astronomical Sanskrit works of authorities like Aryabhatta, Varahara Mihira and Kalidasa, The dates of classical Sanskrit works based on their internal evidence and astronomical references contained in them, have been critically surveyed. The birth dates of Lord Buddha, the Era of the Cyrus the Great, the date of Shankaracharya and even the nativity of Lord Krishna have been comparatively verified with the results obtained by astronomical dating of the Mahabharata War based on the internal evidences of the epic. These results were again lastly counter-checked with the discoveries of two rare Copper Plate Grants of King Janamejaya issued at the time of the famous ‘Sarpa Yaga’ or the Snake Sacrifice. The Inscriptional evidence has been compared from its astronomical citations and the planetary positions, with the Chronology of the Puranas and that of the Mahabharata. The views of Sit William Jones and the other British Archaeologists who suppressed Copper Plate Grants have been critically surveyed. The conclusions of all these studies have been projected against the system of counting time in the ancient people in many primitive societies, by counting the Number of Days elapsed. In the last chapter, evidence has been adduced from the fiadings of modern science with regard to the global changes around 3000 B.C. which marked the beginning of Kali Yuga. Even references to the Bible in the Old testament clearly show that around this time, catastrophic events took place on the earth and in the sky marking great changes, like the parting of the sea in the days of Moses and also rivers of blood in Egypt. Velikovsky has shown from the evidence of Egyptian Papyrus that such events did indeed occur around this time. The events described in the Mahabharata like the sinking of Dwaraka on the 7th day of Lord Krishna's passing away as a result of earth-quake has also been proved as a scientific truth by the recent discovery of a sunken city near Bombay where Dwaraka once stood as an “Island City”. The searches of Sri Rao,* who ** “Submergence of Dwaraka A Fact”—-S.R. Rao “Sree-man Maka Bharata, Maha Mangala Smarana Sanchika”” (Kannada, and English) (Publ. :-—""Bharat Darsana” Press. Bangalore, July, 1985 (pp. 120-130). } PREFACE xv conducted the submarine investigation go to prove that the reference toa Pralaya or sinking of Dwaraka at the beginning of Kali Yuga in the epic, is a historical fact. ‘An attempt is made to cover the researches over the various scientific discipline besides literary and historical evidences. The evidences of diverse sciences goes to show conclusively that, (a) The Earth's axis was reversed, (b) The East and West quarters were interchanged, (c) The courses of rivers and their salinity’ changed, {d) sea receded and advanced, (e) the ocean floor rose and fell (f) temples: which were facing east now face west, () planetary motion changed, (h) the orbit of moon changed, (i) the length of the years also changed (j) and lastly planetary orbits and earth's magnetic polarity too changed (k) Whales are found in hillocks which are now above the sea level—to name only a few proofs from which it be- came now clear that there was a Pralaya in the historical past of the Earth’s history around 3000 B.C. It appears to be an inescapable conclusion from this vast bulk of the combined evidence of science and Astronomy, that the date of Kali Yuga Era of the third millenium before Christ is actually based on observation The results of such a multi-disciplinary investigation cutting across the traditional boundaries of many sciences, on the question of the dating of the Mahabharata War has have thus been the basis of my present study. This book is based upon my doctoral thesis in the Sanskrit Department in Andhra University for my Ph, D. on the ‘Astronomical Dating of Mahabharata War”. The result doubtless, causes an upheaval to the existing chronology, as acecot- ‘ed by historians, from the days of Sir William Jones and V.C. Smith. But when we remember that the dating of many dates of the early Indian history is largely influenced. by Biblical Chronology, which is merely based on doma and religious belief rather than any scientific proof, one will see the hand of scientific reason over-running the accepted ideas on the weight of only discovered evidences. The date of Buddha and the date of Sankaracharya are examples which get seriously disrupted, among many others from the accepted dates. But when we see that the method of dating adopted in the “Dynasties of the Kali Yuga" by Pargiter was largely one of arbitrary assumptions rather than a scientific or objective proof, we can see that the dates as fixed earlier, are not proved facts but only assumed dates. The present author however, proposes to devote a succeeding work to an investigation of the consequences of adopting this chronology of Kali Yuga, on the well known historical dates, separately. But, an attempt is made in the chapter ‘on the “Chronology of the Puranas” and also in the chapter on the References in the Sanskrit Literature, besides the Chapter dealing with the Dating of the Copper Plate Grants of King Janamejaya, to outline the basic thrust of this Historical evidence. ‘The Kali Yuga is thus important not merely for its Religious and Cultural significance for India, which itself is considerable, judging from the fact that it totally affects the thinking style of the historians of Ancient India; but more, it is ‘one of the few dates closely linked with an Astronomically based Era, namely the “Era of the Kali Yuga Beginning”. Not only does chis date affect the dating xy ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR of the Mahabharata War but also the dating of the Chronology of the Kali Yuga described by Puranas like the Bhavishya, Vishnu, Bhagavata and others which formed the Pre-history of Ancient India, on which all the early historians from Vincent Smith and Jones down the most modern of writers of text-books on the history of ancient India have drawn heavily, while trying to discredit them. All this will be effected by the upheaval of new facts, the scientific discoveries, and new changes effecting our thinking about Mankind’s antiquity. Histosy therefore cannot be an exception! ‘The material has, however to be presented in a more readable book-like format. The needs of the publisher in bringing the book before a wider audience, the lay leader and the technical researcher alike, had also to be kept in view. But the basic material presented for my Doctorate in Sanskrit is retained unaltered (except for minor editorial alteration), and for the addition of the last chapter on the “End of a Yuga” which is based upon recent scientific researches, That the conclusions run contrary to many accepted dates or cause an upheaval to the dating methods adopted by the Orientalists of the East India Company days and all their fegacy, could not be avoided except at the price of closing ones eyes to new scientific truths, to new facts; 0 the abundance and variety of scientific facts which are every day not only shaking the foundation of the existing knowledge, but also widening of our scope enlarging and deepening our understanding of mankind’s past. A pet theory or a fondly heid date is a small although, painful sacrifice for the clear understanding of truth, Indian Chronology is not alone in this respect, Even science could not escape major reversals and upheavals of its theories, The publication of “the Worlds in Collission”* by Velikovsky which was bailed as a “literally earthquake” has done incalculable damage to the image of the classical dynamics in Physics, and Geology as applied to our solar system especially the theories of the origin of the planets and the changes on the earth, among many other things. The author wishes ta aknowledge his grateful thanks to his Holiness the Dalai Lama for his kind interest in a scientific Chronology, which could be also applied to correctly fixing the date of Buddha, and for his kindly and gracious Foreword. My thanks are due to my guide who made the doctoral researches in Sanskrit Department a literacy adventure and an_ intellectual fulfilment: to Sri M.R. Appa Rao, then the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University for his encouragement which made the study possible; and to many other friends associates in research and the publishers for bringing this book in a presentable form. ‘The author does not however expect the present work to be perfect, He shall be grateful for the views and suggestions of enlightened scholars, which can widen and deepen his understanding of the subject which is truly vast and can help to make the present work more accurate and to update it, in future. HYDERABAD Dr. E. Vedavyas, 1.A.S., Ph. D. 21-3-1986. Chapter One SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO INDIAN CHRONOLOGY THE SPACE age is on us whether we like it or not. With the stepping of Man on Moon and rockets flying out in space to reach Mars and Saturn, a ‘New Age’ has indeed dawned in the history of mankind. Recent scientific discoveries after the advent of the space age have com- pletely revolutionised Man’s view of the universe and the Earth. Many things which were considered well established and unquestionable truths, have started crumbling down under the weight of new scientific discoveries pouring in from every side, as the world advances each day into the Space Age. If we look back, we see that there has certainly been a tremendous speeding-up of progress and an incredible increase of Man’s knowledge about the universe and himself. The secrets of the atom have been laid bare, the mystery of matter and the depths of space are being probed. There has also been an enormous increase of new scientific knowledge in all the Sciences. Man’s ideas about the origin of the universe, and about the age of Man on this planet have similarly undergone a protean change in the light of the New knowledge which scientific research is everyday heaping upon man. But strange, it may seem, that history and chronology are yet to revise and update their knowledge about Man’s past in the light of these new discoveries, achieved in diverse sciences, With the stepping of Man on the Moon, all preconceived notions about the Earth and the Geography, and about the origin of Man and the beginning of human history have undergone a sudden mutation. The origin of Man has been thrown back by several millions of years with the discovery, by Prof. Leaky, of human remains in Africa which revealed the existence of human beings a few million years earlier than what was considered to be the date of Man’s origi Even Darwin's theory of Origin of Man from anthropoids has received a severe jolt, with the publication of Immanuel Velikovsky’s famous book “Worlds in Collision”. This strange thesis, propounds a new theory which in effect, takes away the place of Man's origin from the earth. It speaks of a Planetary ‘collision’, when a giant celestial visitor, nearly collided with our Earth, after which the Earth underwent severe convulsions of a cataclysmic nature of titanic proportions, as a result of which, the Earth’s poles were tilted! Another remarkable book “Cata- clysms of the Earth” by Hugh Auchincloss Brown and another one entitled, “Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds” by Charles Berlitz,? dig up fantastic evidence, From out of the ruins of a Columbian tomb, a model of aircraft? estimated to be more than 15,000 years old has been found !!! As such, visitors from outer space as Zaitsevet tells us, have landed on the earth, at least once in the Earth’s past. 2 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR These new winds of change which have started blowing, are already shaking the foundations of conventional history and chronology. History and chronology cannot be exceptions to the law of change. Sir Leonard Wooley’s brilliant work “History Unearthed” and another book about the “Cities in the Sea” by Nicholas C. Flemming reveal a new chapter in exploring unknown civilizations, buried deep under the seas. In fact, with such discoveries, many of the accepted theories of old school, either in Archeaology or History, are becoming more and more untenable, with the result that the dating methods of mankind's most ancient scriptures like the Vedas, the Mahabharata or the Puranas, are becoming increasingly out-dated and obsolete, This is largely due to our failure to take into account, the impact of these new discoveries, on the Chronology of ancient Nations in general, and on the Veda and Mahabharata in particular. The reason is simple. Our concept of history and its dating have become scientifically outdated. Rightly, Charles Berlitz,> one of the foremost researchers in our own time, observed : “Our concept of ancient history was originally strongly influenced by our dependence on the Bible, of which the books specifically relating to the history of antiquity are written from an understandably insular point of view. This has tended to distort a general view of ancient cultures and completely neglect some important ones”. (talics, mine) Nowhere is this more glaring than in the case of ancient India’s history, and more specifically in the dating of the Mahabbarata which happens to be one of the most important epics of the world, rightly called India’s “National Epic” by Sri Aurobindo—not merely from a literary and cultural stand-point, but also as an ancient record of the Indian Nation having a bearing on the dating of all ancient cultures besides Indian History, and which can form the basis, if rightly used, of dating India’s ancient history from the pre-Buddhistic times. Because the Mahabharata War marks an event of the magnitude of a global conflict in ancient days. It marks, as Sri Hara Vilas Sarada puts it : “the turning point in the history of India, nay, in the History of the World”! Indeed, “the Mahabharata war is a great turning point in the life of India as a country and of the Hindus, as a Nation......because......” “The Mahabharata War”... “was . . fraught with world-wide consequences”.* Against this background if one reads the earliest writings of Orientalists like Sir William Jones, Monier Williams and those writers whose views on the dating of the Mahabharatha and the Puranas are even today still considered to be proven facts, we will be astonished to see how much they are influenced by this predominant bias and dependence on the Bible and its chronology, in dating SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 3 India’s ancient History to which Charles Berlitz draws our attention,” In fact, the mental attitude of Sir William Jones becomes obvious when we read his remarks, like the following : “that the Vedas were actually written before the flood, / shall never believe’ : seen “Still less can the adamantine pillars of our Christian faith be moved by the result of any debates on the comparative antiquity of the Hindus and Egyptians, or of any inquiries into the Indian theology”.” (italics, mine) To what extent men were controlled by the Biblical dogma in those days, and the extent of dependence on the Bible, Berlitz illustrates in a striking manner : “Dr. John Lighfoot, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, a contemporary of Bishop Usher, specified further that Man was created by the Trinity on the 23rd of October, 4004 B.C. at 9 O'Clock in the morning’. Even more fantastic was an attempt by Philip Henry Gosse, as late as 1857, to justify Biblical tradition in terms of fossils which were turning up in increasing quantities in the nineteenth century. Gossee, an outstanding authority on marine life, proposed that God had created fossils of extinct animals at the same time he created Adam and Eve”. (pp. 1 & 2).* It is those minds who like Jones “refuse to be shaken” in “the Adamantine pillars of our faith” even in the light of such insignificant bits like fossils, or even scientific findings, that have laid the foundations of Indian History and our thinking on the Ancient Chronology of the Vedas and the Mababharatha. Such bias had also similarly distorted the history and chronology of Egypt, China, Babylonia, and of other civilizations like the Mayas and Incas. Little surprise, therefore, if we find all our writers in history of India adamantly refusing to go beyond 3000 B.C., because that will exceed the “Creation Date” of the Bible and instead, attempt to adjust and tailor the dates of Vedas, Puranas, the Laws of Manu and alll the rest into a ridiculous span of 2000 years in all! This dogma formed the irrefutable basis of all our historical writings. But in the prevailing winds of change, in this space age, these age old hide-bound attitudes Have begun to change, in the West at least, in the face of the flood of new discoveries of science. According to Berlitz : “Even this foundation is changing. Paleolithic tool-cut notations carved im bone, calculated to be 30,000 years old, are now being studied in a new light, namely that they are records of Lunar cycles, and notations over long periods of the phases of the Moon, a sort of “Cave-man” Astronomy! That such apparent records are found in caverns in different sections of Europe tend to change our concept of the intellectual capacity of our cavedwelling ancestors”.® (p. 3) 4 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR This change in the attitude of scholars, a willingness to review the past ideas in the light of new discoveries in science, has not yet completely established in India, although it is more or less evident in Soviet Russia, Germany, U.S.A. and U.K. But it is not a result of scholary study. It is only a result of the tremendous speeding-up scientific discoveries ! Our knowledge of the antiquity of Man expanded rather suddenly. A number of startling new discoveries, such as the following one, gave a serious jolt to our traditional concepts of the cave-man and his age, of our smug traditional historian whose datings were long held as “‘proved” subjectively, on the basis of schelary guesses of “authorities” like our victorian orientalists, and historians laid down the Jaw, in the dating of Vedas, Puranas and the Mahabharata. Their successors are now forced to accept the evidence of objective proofs, as opposed to subjective views. One such instance is the discovery of “Atlantis” the Lost Continent under the sea, once considered to be a legend and Myth brilliantly covered by? James Mavor Jr. and in the book “The Secret of Atlantis’! They prove that Atlantis did indeed exist once, but went under the sea in a geological catastrophe. Models of aircaft which are strikingly similar to our modern aeroplanes were discovered in Colorado in a cave and were photographed; thereby proving that air travel was a fact, nearly 10,000 years before Christ !* Hugh Auchincloss that brilliant and tireless researcher had catalogued cataclysms occuring some 27 to 30 centuries back from human recollection supported by scientific facts, specifi- cally dated by him, in his book ‘Cataclysms of the Earth”.!* Eric Danniken had also shown striking evidences of space rockets and utomic weapons used in the Mahabharata War. V. Zaistev found in his Book ‘‘Temples and Spaceships”?* proofs of space-ships in Ramayana which answer to the description of modern ‘Russian space Vehicles ! The learned Prof. Vyacheslar Zaitsev reveals sensational facts about Earth’s past and of space travel even in those far off days, more ancient than Harappan Culture of the Indus Valley or of Bible’s date of Creation which is believed to be 4004 B.C.!. In another book'’ the Russian Professor goes into this question deeper. He has broken new gound in Indian History. His research which is now widely acclaimed, proves that space travel was a fact in the days of Ramayana and Mahabharata ! Another writer from a different country had with elaborate proofs establised that space-sbips did, indeed loom in the ancient skies in those days. By a remarkable analysis of the earliest religious writings, he fitted the findings of Archaeology and Radio-carbon dating to reveal a new chapter in Man’s History on his planet. A stunning discovery comes from Russia. It is that there were visits from the space-ships to Earth nearly 27 to 30 centuries ago!! Immanuel Velikovsky, that brilliant and tireless researcher had catalogued the cataclysms of human recollection, supported by scientific facts, specifically dated by him in his book “Cataclysms of the Earth”, Eric Von Danniken’® found evidences for space-rockets SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 5 and atomic weapons being used in the Mahabharata War. I have listed out in the bibliography"? for a reference, a cross-section of the lesser known research works on the existence of space travel in ancient days and of visits from outer sapce, of extra-terrestrial visitors. From these premises, one easily finds that much has happened in science in the last quarter century in this age of rockets and space travel that upset the apple-cart of our good old “Historian's” pet theories in dating the past, with his victorian knowledge of Man’s antiquity to call for an urgent reorientation of Mankind’s chronology in order to fit-in with the winds of change in a space age like ours. Eric Von Dauniken in bis remarkable book “Chariots of the Gods” has found electrifying evidence in the form of Archaeological finds and excavations in Peru, Mexico, Lima, Nazca and other ancient Civilizations, besides finding striking models of aircraft from a Columbian cave to support his thesis" that the mankind had indeed witnessed the landings of space-ships in the past, from Visitors from other planetary systems. In fact, he proved that advanced knowledge on Mathematics, Geography and Astronomy was in fact; received by ancient man from these visitors from outer space, who were called *‘Gods”. ‘According to Zaitsev, a wandering space-ship landed on earth thus starting acolony which is now the cradle of Man on Earth. Danniken proves with forceful voluminous evidence from different disciplines like Archeology, Biology, Radioastronomy and Nuclear Physics, that the earth knew a “Space age” in the past, when space vehicles were as common a sight as air-crafts are today. He considers that the Mahabharata is “‘at least 5000 years old if not older”. Could Civilization be so advanced five thousand years ago? To answer the point—Danniken refers to the existence of a copper mine, which was operated as late as 40,000 B.C.! It may sound incredible, even if taken singly, but there is a host of such startling facts, covering many disciplines and diverse sciences! There is for instance, a discovery of ancient mummies, which are as old as 11,000 to 15,000 B.C. as per Radio-carbon dating, in which glass bangles and other artefacts were found evidencing an advanced “modern” civilization existing nearly ten centuries beyond the oldest possible dating of the Harappan or Indus Valley Civilization (or of the Vedic Hymns, which even according to Tilak are dated as 4,000 B.C.). These are evidences, too many and too glaring to be ignored ! And too shattering to our ideas of history and “pre- history” to be ignored by historians whose chronology dare not go beyond 3000 B.C. at the most. In India particularly, it had almost become a fashion, to consider all the datings made during the days of the British Raj in our text-books in history and literature ‘“‘as conclusively proved” beyond further discussion, and that ‘the matter was settled once and for all” based on the speculative estimates of dates, arrived at by them. But how dangerous such ‘conclusions’ could be, is revealed if we see some of the starting discoveries made in this space age of marvels. Prof. Siddahanta Shastri®® in his learned work on the “History of Pre- Kaliyuga India” mentions about an inscription found in a fort in Mardin in N.W. 6 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR India destroyed by Mohammed Ghazni, dating the fort upto 40,000 B.C.! Incredible? True, but this is not all. He goes on to add one more example as proof of an antique civilization with pre-historic dates by a reference to “Taarikh-i-Binakiti” a Persian book which recorded the fact that Allauddin Khilji found at Khita that the government of the of the place had lasted for 42,875 years”! Prof. Dowson and Sir Elliot had in fact mentioned this in their “History of India”?! about the existence of this old Inscription in the fort at Mardin in North Western India which dates back to 40,000 years B.C.. Their authority is this very same ancient Persian book “‘Tarikh-i-Guzida” which testifies to the above inscription. As Prof. Siddhanta Shastri says: ‘The fact that an advanced stage of human civilization existed Jong before 10,000 B.C. could further be known from concrete documentary evidence”. What is this documentary evidence? A Persian book “Tarikh-i-Binakti” mentions that Sultan Allauddin Khilji, while fighting the Hindu ruler of Khita discovered that the government of the place was in existence for nearly 50,000 years. Much had happened in the world of science and its space age findings in the last fifty years that serious doubt are beginning to be expressed on the datings previously held as proved. Because when the date of origin of Man has been pushed back by the discoveries of Prof. Leaky about the existence of human remains like ‘Home erectus’ at least 1} to 2 Million years back—this would also naturally push back the dated beginnings of human culture, What was once incredible, say to accept that Mahabharata War occured 36 years before Kali ‘Yuga Era nearly 3000 years before Christ, is now coming more and more into the realm of probability, so that the Chronology of the Puranas cannot any longer be outright thrown out, without a fair trial, It may not be out of place to recall here, some such remarkable discoveries, mainly because they are less likely to have come to the notice of historians and Sanskritists, as they belong to the realm of science, which is a totally different discipline! One such instance is that of the American buffalo, which was considered extinct before Man appeared on earth! In the words of Berlitz : “Fossil of monstrous buffallo (Bos americans) extinet for 10,000 years was discovered in 1920’ near Folsom, New Mexico with a well shaped arrowhead in the bones, Experts explained it away, saying that arrowhead might have been carried into the bones by rodents”. “But later, another arrowhead was found in the ribs of another extinct buffallow. Then opinions had to change! Other traces of prehistoric Man were found later. Atlantic Coast of Florida had fossils of sabre-tooth tiger and camel with pottery and stone implements of man”’.®* Similar is the example of the Elephant : “Extinct elephants and mastodons may be the reason for elephant motif in Mexican, art (an elephant mound) of Wisconsin”. SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 7 If elephant and mastodon were extinct, as geologists hold, on the authority of its dug-up record of fossil, how could elephant motif be carved by man there? The Glastonbury stone structure, which is now identified as a rock-cut Zodiac was given an age of 15000 years by science! If the scientific advancement of the people 15000 years back was so advanced mathematically, to enable them to use the Zodiac, how much more early, the beginnings of such civilization could be, one cannot even correctly estimate. In the face of such proofs, one cannot deny a knowledge of astronomy in 3100 B.C. to the author of Mahabharata and dub its astronomical references as interpolations. ‘A map of the Antarctica made in the year 1737 in Paris known as Philip Buache map, which was a copy of a still more ancient map, showed the Antarctica as two separate land masses—whereas modern science discovered this fact only in 1958 as a result of scientific exploration in the Geophysical Year. How did these ancient cartographers know, and incorporate this fact in the maps so early ? Does all this indicate a lost knowledge or a Forgotten civilization ? What happens to the cosy estimates of our historian and orientalist of the Vedic Aryans not being able to make even the basic astronomical observations ? ‘Ata time say 11000 to 15000 years B.C, when according to our college history book, even the bullock cart was not discovered, there were Mummies contain- ing not only gold ornaments but also glass beads and bangles 2° “Js there any tangible proof”? asks Charles Berlitz** “in the face of such glaring new discoveries made practically all over the globe and under the sea bed that advanced civilizations existed before our own recorded beginnings” ? (emphasis, mine). ‘These are only straws in the wind! They indicate which way the wind is blowing. Man's understanding of the universe and the Earth including Geography, Geology and human Evolution are fast undergoing a revolutionary change in the light of the new discoveries of the space age ! ‘Another blow to our archeologists and even to speculative datings came again fromthe science of Paleontology. The story of the discovery of a fish called “Living Fossil” (Coclacanth) came as a warning and a lesson to both archaelogists and historians, who depend upon excavated evidence alone, to reconstruct the past, in its entirety. Because, the fossils of this fish which were excavated only in the pre-tertiary age, nearly 300 million years ago, are through- out absent in all the rock-strata for millions of years till now ! ‘And on the basis of this evidence, our Victorian scientists concluded, that the animal was extinct—nearly 300 million years ago! The discovery of a living Coelacanth in the last fifties, which was caught alive, near the sea coast of Madgascar came as a shock and shattered this myth of a conclusion. It exposed our complacency about our conclusions, and showed how risky it is to depend exclusively on exacavated material alone, either for the Geologist, Paleontologist or even the Archaeologist and draw a negative conclusion, based on the absence of excavated evidence even if it be, for 300-million years!! The absence of archae- logical or Paleontological evidence does not thus prove the negative; it only 8 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR, records the existence of what has been excavated ! One more example comes from that of the Evolution of the horse. As Charles Berlitz says : “Horse disappeared from Ancient America before the advent of man accord- ing to geologists. But bones of primitive horses were found together in Fells cave, Cerro sota and Pallo Aike on the strait of Magellan in 1938 which are later dated to be more or less 9000 years old. Prehistoric man there, must be using horse as food."5 If horse did really become extinct, as geologists thought, on the basis of its absence in the fossil record of geological excavations, how could its remains be found with that of primeval man? The absence of the fossils, of horse therefore, cannot be taken as negative proof of the absence of horse on earth. The result is that no one can now seriously believe, with Dr. Jobn Light- foot, that the world was created in the year 4004 B.C., on the 23 of October at 9 O'Clock in the Morning! Because on the strength of conviction of the ‘Divine Word’ of Bible, the history of world was made to fit into the Biblical span of nearly 2000 years between the birth of Christ and us! It is a sad commentary on scholarly reluctance to give up their prejudices, even under the impact of the latest scientific findings. This unshakability of all datings once fixed on the basis of the antiquity of biblical “Creation” by Sir William Jones and his writings, had throughout coloured all our historical research right from the days of Colebroke, Monier Williams Winternitz, Goldstucker Weber and a host of other Orientalists not excluding F.E. Pargiter himself, whose otherwise remarkable research on the Chronology of the Puranas,** is marred by this bias, by which he attempts to actually tailor the Chronology of Puranas to suit the figures of Biblical creation. There is great reluctance even now, which stands in the way of certain orienta- lists, to admit any date as genuine, which goes beyond 3000 years B.C. limit! This barrier is more psychological than scientific. The lessons of scientific discoveries, however, are fast eroding this scholarly complacency. The evidence of the Puranas and the Mahabharata, is gaining weight in favour of their real antiquity, untailored by scholars, based on the internal evidence. This change can be seen in a book on the history of Pre-Kaliyuga India by Siddhanta Shastri. Prof. Shastri observes in this book : “On the evidence of the above inscriptions on the one hand, and the detailed history recorded in our Puranas on the other, we find it quite reasonable to accept that human civilization, in a highly advanced stage existed in India long before 50000 B.C.”2" (emphasis mine). Impact of Scientific Evidence : How do these discoveries concern us when we deal with the Chronology of the Mahabharata ? How does this mass of collected discoveries from different Photographs of Aircraft models from a pre-historic Age discovered in South America Adopted from “The Gods and their Grand Design” —Erich Von Daniken - Corgi Books, 1986. SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 9 sciences fit into the antiquity of the Mahabharata, would be a pertinent question. This only shows how the findings of modern scientific research are bound to effect cour traditional research ideas on the dating of all ancient civilizations, the datings of Antiquity of Man, and even the date of the Mahabharata. Because the main argument against the traditional date of the Kali-Yuga is that Chronology of the Yugas runs into thousands of years which is incredibly long according to the imagination of our research scholars, both in history and Sanskrit oriental research. ‘These traditional scholars of history believe that 3000 B.C., is far too ancient a date for an advanced civilization like the Mahabharata to have flourished jn! This is because we are accustomed to believe in the artificial division of pre-Buddhist History into “Vedic”, “Post-Vedic” and ‘Epic’ Ages in our text books prepared from the days of the British Raj and faithfully repeated even in our time. Many of them are thus blissfully unaware of the shakings of their edifice in their own disciplines by the Earthquaking findings revealed by each science with each explosion of new knowledge in the light of every new fact discovered. The past, thus becomes every day more and more untenable. Any impartial mind, who knows even the barest outlines of Science can see from the numerous instances we have noticed so far, that almost every science has made discoveries each of which go to prove that Man has been in existence on earth far at least | to 1} million years, and in which there were visits from extra- terrestrial civilizations to earth recorded even in our remote past. It is interesting to observe how prejudice though it is difficult to shake off, especially in research scholars of the old school, who are not familiar with the remarkable scientific discoveries daily pouring in and which are shaking the foundations of their pet theories regarding the age of Man and about the specula- tive, scholarly dating of civilization. As an instance, of how scholarly opinion may change radically, not over centuries of research, but in the life-time of a single scholar in the light of the startling new discoveries of Science, we can have no better example than that of late lamented scholar, Lokmanya Bal .Gangadhar Tilak on the question of the antiquity of the Vedas. He came to the conclusion that the earliest hymns of the Rig Veda could not be later than 3000 to 4000 B.C. on the basis of comparative study with the sacred books of the Parsis and the Greeks. But, when he came into contact with the researches of Geology, Climatology and Astronomy, as Scientific aids in understanding the earth's past and of Man’s remote origins—he revised his opinion radically and held that the oldest Rig Vedic hymns pertain to a period** when the Aryans were in their Arctic Home as evidenced by the “Ushas” Suktas, referring to the Dawns of 30-days and a six months long ‘day’ of the Polar and circumpolar regions, must be dated not later than 10,000 to 8000 B.C. or what Geology calls as the “Post-glacial epoch”, following the last “Ice Age” of the Geologists even to which the Veda refers to as the “Shatam Himam”, or the hundred-year frost. His own words will amply illustrate this. “In the light of this New Evidence”, 10 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR observes Tilak in his Orion, “there is therefore no reasonable objection for carrying the periods of the Vedic literature further back a thousand years, or to about 4000 B.C.*? ‘Almost a few years later he comes to the conclusion in the light of geolo- gical findings which go to support astronomical evidence saying that “It is almost certain that the invasion of the Arctic Aryan home by the last Glacial epoch did not take place at a time older than 10,000 B.C.’"* Such is the impact, new discoveries of science have on historical research! Scholarly bias and Scientific Chronology : But nevertheless, the weight of tradition in the shape of scholarly opinion powerfully weighs down the views of even so progressive a scholar like Tilak. This can be seen from a single fact. Even after adopting an astronomical basis for dating the Vedas, he dare not stick to the actual dates indicated by astronomy, but dovetailed them with the views of scholars then prevailing in bis own day !! To take an example, the “Krittika Period” of Veda, he calculates as 2500-1400 B.C. in his book “Orion”.*t But he again changed this to 3000-1400 B.C. in his “Arctic Home in the Vedas”, which could not have been possible had he strictly adhered to a scientifically calculated date on the basis of astronomy alone, for the Krittika Era, We shall examine this in detail elsewhere, but this is enough here, to illustrate our point, “All such guesses and speculations” observes Tilak, finally in his Arctic Home in the Vedas—“about the origin of the Aryan race and its civilization will have now to be revised in the new light thrown upon the subject”. ‘Thus, he makes an astronomical estimate with a wide range, for fear that the exact dating if rigidly worked out may militate too strongly against the scholarly view. This would apply more strongly to the dating of Yugas and Manvantaras which should be studied in the light of geological scale of time and of astronomy. This approach should continue to be so, even to-day, where the weight of new scientific discoveries having a direct bearing on the antiquity of Man and consequently on the antiquity of the Vedas, Puranas and the Maha- bharata have multiplied a thousand fold, crying for a new change in the basis for calculating the past more exactly, less fettered by opinions of scholars. Without studying these teachings of the Puranas in the light of modern science, it will therefore be childish to pass judgement and utter scholarly opinions about their content, or of the facts described in them as was often done, merely based on a little familiarity with Sanskrit. Mere weight of scholarly opinions of this sort, or the research work of the orientalists without studying the Puranas and the Veda thoroughly in the light of teachings of the modern, science especially in the Jight of the most recent discoveries derive no great weight or significance. These discoveries, of Geology and Paleontology studied in the light of Climatology and with the aid of astronomy, no doubt raise important problems regarding the antiquity of Man and his earliest writings, the Vedas and the Mahabharata. But these ancient records of the past of all religions, like the Veda, Mahabharata and the Puranas contain the truths revealed by the new discoveries SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO INDIAN CHRONOLOGY ant of science, which push back the date of Man’s antiquity by several thousands of years, far beyond the childish guesses of the early historians and scholars working on these Puranas with their victorian ideas of Biblical chronology. We can have no escape against facts. One therefore slowly comes to realise, perhaps with a shock, the need for ‘more exact scientific methods {pr dating the past | Chronology cannot any longer be based entirely upon scholarly estimates. It is too serious a matter to be left to the speculative dating of scholarly opinion alone, without any scientific aid. “Chronology” as Flinders Petrie observes ‘tis the backbone of history”. Even comparative chronology will not suffice, in the abseuce of a scientific check like ‘Astronomy or Mathematics. Scientific tools for Dating the Past: Two prominent scientific aids come to the rescue of the Historian with the precision of science. One is Radio- Carbon dating, and the other is Astronomical dating. Both these methods are based upon sound scientific principles for estimating the age, of any past date. Astronomical calculations are based upon the movement of the sun and planets in the sky whose rates of motion are well known, and scientifically well established—and are also based on the occurence of eclipses etc., whose cycles too are well known to science; or the Precession of the Equinoxes which again, is more or less scientifically established; or the shifting of pole-stars on the cardinal points in the year and their proper motion over the centuries; and lastly, we have the planetary synodic cycles, which are more or less definitely known with sufficient accuracy to be of use for astronomically fixing up the year, and if possible, correct to the month and date, of any past event ! But of the two, Radio carbon dating is applicable only to excavated finds which are liable to Radio-active disintegration of Carbon into C-14. Like the scholarly estimates, this has also an element of uncertainty and involves estima- tion, plus or minus. Moreover, as far as material of a literary or scriptural character is concerned, this Radio Carbon method will not be of any help. Only Astronomical dating comes in handy in dealing with literary material—as the basis for a scientific calculation, in accordance with the principles laid down in Mathematical physics and astronomy, Scientific upheaval to Traditional Historian: But astronomical dating if exactly and scientifically followed raises certain problems. The first problem is that the results of astronomical analysis of the references in the Mahabharata do not agree with the present dating of history, The reason is two- fold. The present dates in early Pre-Buddhistic period of Indian history are largely based on surmises or scholarly guesses, mostly of Western scholars. In fact, no two scholars agree in their dating of the Mahabharata. The problem is almost similar to the dating of the Vedas. But luckily, Vedic 12 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR Chronology was put on a firmly scientific basis—at least in approach, even if not in the results—by Lok Manya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. It is achieved chiefly by the astronomical method. It is only because of such scientific methodology they adopted, that at least two scholars arrived at the same date for the dating of Veda—namely Prof. Jacobi in the West and Tilak in Asia. But Mahabharata dating could not receive the same benefit of Tilak’s or Jacobi’s scholarship in Sanskrit, coupled with a good grounding in Hindu astro- nomy. The result is that the dating of Mahabharata is still in the hands of speculative scholars who differ with one another, widely. How widely they differ can best be realized if we compare the dates ascribed by various research scholars including historians and Orientalists to Mahabharata, extracted below : F. A. Pargiter and H.C, Raychaudhuri, 950 B.C Altekar and Tarkeshwar Bhattacharya, 1,432 B.C. A.D. Pusalkar, 1,400 5. K.P. Jayaswal, 1,424 B.C. Harit Krishna Deb, 1,400 B.C. Girindrashekhar Basu, 1,416 B.C. Radbakumud Mookberji, 1,415 B.C. V.B. Ketkar, 1,267 B.C. H.C. Seth, 600 B.C. Raja Rao, 2,442 B.C. P.R. Chidambar Aiyar, 3,038 B.C, V.C. Aiyar, 1,194 B.C, Prof. Pradhan, 1,151 B.C. Prof. Daphtary and Sankar, 1,197/8 B.C. P.C. Sen Gupta, 2,449 B.C, Karandikar (Editor of Poona Kesari), 1,931 B.C, D.R. Mankad, 3,201 B.C. M. Krishnamachari, 3,139 B.C. DS. Triveda, 3,137 B.C, C.V. Vaidya, Abhayankar, T.S. Narayan Sastri, 3,102 B.C. Kota Venkatachalam, 3,138 B.C. P.N. Oak, 3,138 B.C. One wonders, whether judgements could be as wide as above, based as they are, on the same text, same data and facts, regarding the antiquity of Mahabharata Epic and also the date of the Mahabharata War. Such conclusions, which could lead to such widely varied results on the basis of the same material hardly deserve to be called worthy of credit. ‘Any system of dating should be reasonably within a small range of varia- tion. Only then it can be reasonably near the true date of the war. Such conclusions should, in a scientific age as ours, deserve to be discarded and SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 13, consigned to the museum or the archive, to be only of a historical interest as @ museum piece of human thought, fit no larger as a dependable method of dating the past. The trouble is, as one can easily see if one wades through the welter of historical writings, that personal opinion of history-scholars however scholarly, —is very personal and is as widely varied as human nature can be. So far, for Indian scholars. Regarding the Western Orientalists, Sri Aurobindo sums up the problem, when he say: “or, it is no exaggeration to say that European scholarship has shed no light whatever on the ‘Mahabharata beyond the bare fact that it is the work of more than one hand. All else it had advanced, and fortunately it had advanced little, has been rash, arbitrary or prejudiced”; “theories, theories and always theories without any honestly industrious consideration of the problem, .. .” He continues : “put it is not from European scholars that we must expect a solution of the Mahabharata problem. They have no qualifications for the task except indefatigable research and collocotion and in dealing with Mahabharata even this power seems to have deserted them”. —Vyasa and Valraiki. Two samples of prejudice will illustrate how coloured are the views of ‘Western scholars about Puranas. Monier Williams says : “The complete list of 18—Puranas given in all the Puranas is absurd and must, therefore, be latter interpolations.” As another sample of prejudice or bias coming in the way of an objective approach of a historian to the datings of history, we have the example of Mill's History of India, in which, commenting on Manu’s laws he says : “the division and arrangement of the Hindu law is rude and shows the barbarism of the Nation.” Of this remarkable book, Prof, Max Muller®? had to say : “The book which I consider most mischievous, nay which I hold respon- sible for some of the greatest misfortunes that have happened in India, is Mill's History of India, even with the antidote against its poison which is supplied by Professor Wilson’s notes”. All this only proves the need which is all the more urgent, i.e., to rescue 14 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR history from the hands of historians and raise it to the level of a Science (based on a scientific foundation which gives it a reliable margin of accuracy and un- tamperability). But astronomical dating, like any other scientific implement has one dis- advantage. It does not agree with our scholars! In fact, it seriously upsets the existing chronologies of history, as believed for generations, by prolonged indoctrination through our text books. But this is the price one has to pay for truth. Astronomical approach has all the unpalatability of truth—especially to scholars wedded to their pet theories and looking askance at alien tools for making history a Science ! ‘But Astronomical dating also solves certain problems. For instance, the date of Creation which is 195,58,85,080 years according to the ancient Hindu ‘Astronomical treatises, surprisingly agrees with the findings of Geology, which places the origin of life at nearly 200 million years ago! Thus, this synchroniza- tion between the astoromical date of Creation of Surya Siddhanta—and of Geology puts all ancient chronology on a firm scientific foundation. In the words of a science writer : “According to the Puranic computation of the length of geologic time, the age of the earth at the date of Puranas were written was 1,96,08,53,034 or very nearly 2 billion years, a value which, it is interesting to note, is as good as identical with the estimate of present-day geologists.” In fixing the date of the Mahabharata, it is therefore, necessary to under- stand the Vedic foundations of ancient Hindu Astronomy, which we find incorpo- rated in the Hindu Panchanga, and on which the Chronology of the Puranas and the Mahabharata entirely depends. The Hindu Panchanga, on which the Hindu even to-day depends for the observance of his daily rituals, festivals, homas and all other rites prescribed by the veda, is based on the Era of Kali-Yuga, which according to tradition, commenced with the day of death of Lord Krishna, who is the principal character in the Mahabharata. The Kali-Yuga is recorded as having commenced 36-years after the Mahabharata War. Everything is therefore connected with the date of Maha- bharata War. This date is also the sheet-anchor in Indian history, a date, on which depends the entire history of the dynasties of Hindu Kings of ancient India, described in all other Puranas like the Vishnu, Matsya, Vayu and the Bhavishya Purana. The Puranas contain prophesies of the future of India as do the ancient Nadi-granthas (ike Bhrigu Samhita) which describe the planetary positions, stars and other astronomical indicators when each Dynasty of kings comes to powe: For instance, few people realize that the Vikrama Era is an astronomical “Sake (Era) which the Bhavishya Purana describes by the planetary conjunction occuring at that time. The birth of Buddha too, likewise is located by the astronomical positions of the planets according to the Hindu Panchanga marking his Birth. SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 15 This is in complete accordance with the Puranic tradition, The Ramayana, for instance describes the planetary position at Rama’s birth, at the time of death of Dasaratha and at crucial stages in the story—as Mahabharata, too does. Thus we can see how the Hindu Panchangw is the basis for recording time for the Yagnas, Festivals (like Rama’s birth date and of Krishna) even the rituals of marriage, birth and death of the Hindu from cradle to cremation. I shall, therefore, briefly explain the relevance of Hiudu Astronomy and its place in determining the date of Mahabharata War—a date which becomes the sheet-anchor for all Ancient History. REFERENCES ‘Worlds in Collision"”—by Immanuel Velikovsky Macmillan (1949) Co. 2. “Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds” (p. 2)}—-by Charles Berlitz. (Delhi Publishing Co., Inc.,— 1 Dag Hammarkjold Plaza). 3. “Gold of the Gods"—by Eric Von Danniken (Corgi Books). 4. “Visitors from Outer Space”—by Vyacheslar Zaitsev—(Sput 5 Jan 1967—Moscow) | Mysteries from Forgotten World” (p. 2)—by Charles Berlitz (Delhi Publishing Co., Inc. Dag Hammarkjold Plaza). 6. ‘Hindu Superiority”—by Hara Vilas Sarada. 7, “The British Discovery of Hinduism"—by PJ. Marshall, (vide Chapter “On the Gods of Greece, Italy and India'"—by William Jones). 8, “Ibid” (p. 1—3). 9. ‘Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds”—by Charles Berlitz. 10, “Voyage to Atlantis"—by James Mavor Jr. 11, “The Secret of Atlantis”—by Otto Heinrich Muick (c) 1976 Econ Verlag G.M.B.K.—Dusseldorf. 12, “Gold of the Gods”—by Eric Von Danniken. 13. “Cataclysms of the Earth"—by Hugh Auchincloss. 14, “Temples and Spaceships"—by Vyacheslar Zaitsev. (Sputnik 1968—Moscow). itors from Outer Space””—by Vyacheslar Zaitsev. 16. “Chariots of the Gods”—by Eric Von Danniken (Corgi Books). 17. ‘Vide Bibliography—(At The End)”. 18. “Gold of the Gods”—by Eric Von Danniken. ors from Outer Space””—by V. Zaitsev. ). “History of Pre-Kaliyuga India”—by R. Siddhanta Shastri, (p. 4). Inter India publications—Delhi—1978. 21. “History of India"—by Ellfot and Dowson Vol-III (p. 66). 22. “Mysteries of Forgotten Worlds”—by Charles Berlitz, (emphasis mine), 23, “Dynasties of the Kali Age”—by F.E. Pargiter. 24. ““Mysteries of Forgotten Worlds"—by Charles Berlitz. 25. Ibid. 26. “Dynasties of the Kali Age”—by F.| 21. “History of the Pre-Kali Yuga Indi later India Publ. Dethi-1977) (p. 5). 28. “Arctic Home in the Vedas"—by B.G. Tilak. (p. 453) 1925 Ed, Publ. M/s Tilak Bros. Poona. 29. “‘Orion’—or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas (Ch. VIII) (p. 218). 30. “Arctic Home in the Vedas”—Ch. III (p. 397). 31. “Orion”—p. 223 (1955 Ed.). 32. “The Arctic Home in the Veda: 33, “India, What It Can Teach US? . Pargiter. "by R. Siddhanta Shastri. '—by B.G, Tilak (p. 454). '—by Max Muller. Chapter Two THE SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT OF TIME— VEDIC ORIGINS MEASUREMENT OF TIME, in ancient India since times immemorial, has always been by counting planetary motion. It may be the motion of our own planet Earth, either around itself once in every twenty-four hours which counted for a ‘day’ or once around the Sun which counted for an ‘year’, or again, it may be a combination of the motion of both Sun and Moon which gave rise to the “month” with its Full Moon as the most glaringly visible “peak” or ‘parva’ which can be easily observed and counted with the naked eye. This is the reason why the months were named after the full-moon as we shall presently see. Counting of Time, did not however, stop with these heavenly bodies alone. The motion of Jupitor gave the Hindu Panchanga its “Jovian Cycle” which repeats every 12-years called “Pushkara”. To mark this Cycle in the minds of the public indelibly and clearly, the ancient Rishis fixed this 12-year Cycle of Jupitor in such a way that every year the “Pushkara’ coincided with the “Holy Flood” of each of the Twelve major rivers, commencing with the Ganga (Ganges) which was always counted when Jupitor entered the Mesha Rasi or the Zodiacal Sign Aries of the Hindu almanak. Again there are the 60-year cycles always commencing with the Lunar year “Prabhava” repeating again every 6lst year. Not only was counting of time and the other elements of the Hindu Panchanga based on planetary motion, but even the very performance of the religious duties by the Vedic priest entirely depended on the calender, just as the Brambin tod ay depends for his “Sandhya-Vandana” in his “Sankalpa’ on the “Panchanga” ot the Hindu Calender. ‘This can be seen from the words of Professor Haug who observes in his Introduction to the ‘Aitareya Bramhana’ as follows : “The knowledge of the calender forms such an essential part of the ritual, that many important conditions of the latter cannot be carried out without the former. The sacrifices are allowed to commence only at certain lucky constellations and in certain months: so, for instance, as @ tule, no great sacrifice can commence during the Sun’s southern progress (dakshinayana); for this is regarded, up to the present day, as an unlucky period for the Brahmans, in which even to die is believed to be a misfortune. The great sacrifices take place generally in spring, in the months Chaitra and Vaisakha (April and May). The Sattras, which lasted for a year, were, as one may learn from a careful perusal of the 4th Book of the Aitareya Brahmana, nothing but an imitation of the Sun’s yearly course. They were divided ‘THE SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT OF TIME. 17 into two distinct parts, each consisting of six months of thirty days each; in the midst of both was the Vishuvan, i.e. equator or central day, cutting the whole Sattra into two halves. The ceremonies were in both the halves exactly the same; but they were in the latter half performed in an inverted order. This represents the increase of the days in the northern and their decrease in the southern progress; for both increase and decrease take place exactly in the same proportions.”! Thus, ‘Chronology’ or counting of time, began with the counting of planetary time not only in Ancient India from the days of the Vedic Rishis, but also in the other ancient nations too. “In Rome” as Lewis observes in his ‘Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients’ : “the care of the calender was considered a religious function and it had, from the earliest times been placed in the hands of the pontiffs.”* We also know from Plato that : “the months and the years are regulated in order that the sacrifices may correspond with the natural seasons, and Cicero remarks that the system of intercalation was introduced with this object.’"* The Hebrew calendar also knew of the Eclipse Cycle or “Saros” which counted one Cycle every 36 years and 12 such Cycles made up a major cycle of 432-years, on which the Hebrew prophetic cycles of the Old Testament, depended The ‘Saros’ of 36 years was again composed of three 12-year cycles (which are the same as the Jupiter’s Pushkara Cycle of the Hindus). Similarly, the Muslim calendar is lunar, where the holy month of Ramzan is a wandering dne, repeating once in 32 or 33 years. ‘These planetary cycles were explained in a masterly fashion by Sephariel that brilliant writer on the Chronometry (or Time Measurement) of the Hebrews in his book on “Hebrew Astrology” by using the Bible's ancient “Prophetic” Cycles to interpret and Prophesy the events of moodern nations like the World War of 1914-18 or the ‘Boer War’ and other climatic Time-Cycles of the world. The Chinese too measured their Time in planetary Cycles as Tilak demonstrated in his “Orion”, “The Arctic Home in the Vedas”, and also in his last unfinished book entitled “Vedic Chronology”. Chambers, in his famous book on astronomical cycles and Oppozzler’s treatise on Eclipses as well as Sephariel, have all showed that the Chinese commenced a ‘New Era” in their history with a planetary conjunction (coming together) of six planets in the Star ‘Krittika’, called “Mao” by the Chinese, about the year 2263 B.C. This incidentally overlapped into the Krittika period of the Vedic and the Mahabharata calendars. Astronomical cycles like the above planetary periods, eclipse cycles and cycles of Equinoxial precession, have also played a significant role in the construction of the Great Pyramid of (Cheops) Giza, in Egypt as I have shown with elaborate 18 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA W AR, examples elsewhere.“ The Mayan Indians, as we shall see presently, knew of the eclipses coming in the next million years, which they engraved on clay tablets, while the Vishnu Purana and Mahabharata speak of a Stellar Cycle of the “Sapta Rishis” or the constellation of the “Great Bear”, which occurs once in 2700 years. The Bhagavata Purana also speaks of a cycle of the Pole Star “Dhruva”, which ‘occurs once in every 26,000 years. This latter cycle, also incidentally tallies with the “Great year”, called Magnus Annus of Plato, which equals the cycle of Hindus described as the “Precession of the Equinox” to complete one round, so called because of the occurance of ‘Pralayas’ or deluges, cataclysms or floods in the History of the Earth like the one described in Bible in the story of Noah’s Ark, and in Mahabharata in the story of Manu being rescued in the “Great Flood” by the Fish or Matsya Avatar during the close of the last cycle of Yugas. Illustrations could however be multiplied, but suffice it here, to show that Chronology of Ancient India was inevitably based on astronomical cycles and stellar measure- ments. The Vedic Rishis too, have therefore, as Haug observed (above), connected the Cycle of effects on all nature (plant, animal and human kingdoms) produced by the Planetary Cycles with the “Cycle of Seasons” or the “Year”, or the one Cycle of Time. The “year” therefore became the symbol of the creative power in nature renewed in every spring and declining in every autumn—a symbol of God, as ‘Time’, The Vedic sacrifice or “Yagna” is thus a Symbol of time, not as an abstraction as in Science but time as the great transformer bringing on change. Vedic tradition therefore, in the measurement of time by astronomy, has its roots in Jyotisha which was therefore called a limb of the Veda. Jyotisha includes not only modern astronomy with its preoccupation with the mathematical calculation of planetary motion, but also the effects which the planetary radiations produce, on mankind in particular and all organic life in general. In other words, the Vedic Science of “Jyotisha” included not merely mathematical astronomy but is also linked with what space age science has termed “astro-biology” and “Astro- physiology” ! The “God of Changes”, is thus invoked through the sacrifice—to produce internal changes in Man either through sound vibration (Mantra) or Geometrical shapes (Yantra) or by a combination of both with the calanderic effects of a plane- tary and stellar nature with yagna—collectively called Tantra. The yagna com- bines all these within the yearly cycle of seasons. The Yagna as ritual is therefore a replica of ‘Yagna’ the year God (Yagna Purusha) which the Rigveda extols in the Xth Mandala in the famous Hymn to Purusha. Yagna is called the year (Yagnah Samvatsarah) and Yagna is also called the God of Existence or “Sthiti”, namely God Vishnu (Yagno-Vai Vishnuh). Such is the philosophy behind the Vedic Rishi’s linking of the Yagna with the year.* In Sanskrit, the work “Savana” means, Yagna—whereas the word “Savana-Year” means an year of 360 days—which is a geometrical year of 1 day for each of the 360 Degrees in the circle of Time. The Saavana Samvatsara, or the year of 360 days is the oldest Vedic year in those far off days before a comet collided with Earth altering its orbit to 365-days, ‘THE SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT OF TIME. 19 as Velikovsky had proved in bis wonderful thesis entitled “Worlds in Collision”.” By such linkage of the counting of time (Chronometry) with the cycle of Yagna, the Vedic Rishis laid the foundations for Hindu Chronology, based on the Panchanga or the Hindu almanak. All time measures are therefore to be in concord with the astronomical events, which can be objectively observed. Thus, Vedic Chronology came to be based on Vedic astronomy. And this applies to History also where a visible event has to be marked by an observable astronomical event.* This explains why Jyothisha became a ‘limb of the Veda’. This is not an isolated tradition, peculiar to the Vedic Rishis alone. On the other hand, it was a feature common with all the ancient civilisations like the Mayas, Incas, Babylonians, Chaldeans and the Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese cultures who have a long astronomy tradition, as I have shown elsewhere.® The discovery of astronomical measurements in the Pyramid; the clay tablets of Mayas showing an Ephemerides of the eclipses for the next million years to come; the discovery in Peru, Tibet and Egypt of step Pyramids bearing 364-steps, like the days in a Solar year; the recent finding of the great statue personifying the “Calenderic God of the Year” (or God of Time—Yagna ?) found by Bellamy with the calenderic glyphs™ engraved on it; or even of bones engraved with the lunar tables, discovered in primitive caves;!! the Canton record of dotted symbols; and other references in Chinese history mentioning about Government astronomers being appointed by Kings to report on eclipses etc.; all these point out clearly that religious sacrifices have always been connected with measurement of time, as a tradition. The Vedic Rishis ate therefore no exception to this. As Sri Romes Chunder Dutt observes rightly : “Astronomy had now come to be regarded as a distinct science, and astronomers by profession were called Nakshatra Darsa and Ganaka. (Taittiriya Brahmana, IV, 5, and White Yajur Veda, XXX, 10, 20). The Twenty-eight lunar mansions are also enumerated singly in the Black Yajur Veda, and a second and later enumeration occurs in the Atharva Sanhita and in the Taittiriya Brahmana. An interesting passage in Satapatha Brahmana (II, 1, 2) shows how sacrificial rites were regulated by the position of the moon in reference to these lunar asterisms. It is too long to be quoted, and we will therefore give extracts : “1, He may set up two fires under the Krittika (the pleiades), for they, the Krittikas, are doubtless Agni’s asterism. 6. He may also set up his fires under (the asterism of) Rohini. For under Rohini, it was that Prajapati when desirous of progeny, set up his fires. 8. He may also set up his fires under (the asterism of) Mrigasirasha, For Mrigasirsha, indeed, is the head of Prajapati. He may also set up his fires under the Phalgunis. They, the Phalgunis, are Indra’s asterism, and even correspond to him in name; for, indeed, Indra is also called 20 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR Arjuna, this being his mystic name; and they (Phalgunis) are also called Arjunis. 12, Let him set up his fire under the asterism Hasta, whosoever should wish that (presents) should be offered him; then indeed (that will take place) forthwith; for whatever is offered with the hand (hasta), that indeed is given to him, 13. He may also set up his fires under Chitra” etc.1? This linking of Religious duty of performing Yagnas with measurement of time or Chronology led to the early man making astronomical observations faith- fully and religiously. Astronomy has, thus naturally got linked with Chronology, and consequently the Astronomical Chronology of ancient India had become an inseperable part of the Vedic tradition. It is generally not sufficiently well realised that the chronology of India has such a tradition, handed down by Vedic astronomy as a part of the general corpus of knowledge of diverse sciences. Because, Veda has been considered as a repository of a Supreme Synthesis of all Knowledge. And this knowledge, not only included Yoga and other spiritual and ritual matters but also physical sciences like astronomy (Jyotisha) mathematics (Ganita) and medicine’ as we shall see now. In fact, in Chandogya Upanisad (VIII, 1, 2), we find Narada saying to Sanatkumara : “I know the Rig Veda, Sir, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, as the fourth the Athervana, as the fifth the Itihasa, Purana, (the Veda of the Vedas) grammar; the Pitrya (rules for sacrifices for the ancestors); the Rasi (the science of numbers); the Daiva (the science of portents); the Nidhi (the science of time); the Vakovakya (logic); the Ekayana (ethics): the Deva Vidya (etymology); the Brahma Vidya (pronunciation prosody, & c.); the Bhuta Vidya (the science of demons); the Kshatra Vidya (the science of weapons) the Nakshatra Vidya (astronomy); the Sarpa Devanjana Vidya (the science of serpents and of genii.). All this I know, Sir.” Ihave endeavoured to show that Indian Medicine or Ayurveda, Botany and Plant Pathology called Vriksa-Ayurveda, Astronomy or Jyothisha, arithmetic or Ganita, geometry or Kshetra-Ganita which is derived from the Vedic ‘sulba’ and ‘kalpa’ sutras, as well as architecture and town planning, Grihavastu and Nagara-vastu, all these are derived from this one supreme synthesis of Vedic practical sciences called “Shastras”.\* Astronomy too originated from this “Synthesis of Sciences”—called Veda. In fact, in Brihadaranyaka (II, 4, 10) we are told that “Rigveda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, Atharvangirasas, Itihasa (legends), Purana (cosmogonies), Vidya (knowledge), the Upanishada, Slokas (verses), Sutras (prose rules), Anuvyakhyanas (glosses), Vyakhyanas (commentaries), have all been breathed forth from the Supreme Being”. Astronomy and chronology are there- fore no exception to this general rule. ‘THE SC1ENCB OF MEASUREMENT OF TIMB 21 Indian Chronology is therefore considered a science “Siddhanta” as it is based upon a scientific measurement of time according to cosmology or Puranetihasa or Archaic History*® based on principles of mathematical Astronomy. As R.C. Dutt" rightly observes : “The first elementary knowledge of the astronomical science is discernible in the Rig Veda itself. The year was divided into twelve lunar months and a thirteenth or intercalary month was added to adjust the lunar with the solar year (I, 25, 8).” The Bhagavad Gita, Manusmriti and the Puranas explain the general scheme of this Vedic Synthesis which forms the basis or background for the understanding of Creation and its World Cycles namely the Kalpas and Yugas, and from which is derived the Panchanga or the Hindu Almanac. According to the Bhagavad Gita 1000—Chatur Yugas form one Kalpa, a calculation which even the Buddhist"? texts have adopted later, On the authority of Veda, the Manu Smriti and the Bhagavad Gita describe the “Creation—Cycle” which revolved every thousand Chatur-Yugas. The Surya Siddhanta an ancient authority on Hindu astronomy calculates the Era of Kalpadi or the beginning of this Bramba Kalpa in which, all the planets began their revolution in the Zodiac or Rasi Chakra, from the first-point of the Mesha or the first Rasi of the Hindu Zodiac, which is marked by the first star of the Hindu/ Nakshatras, on a Sunday, in the first Lunar year ‘Prabhava’ of the 60-year cycle, ‘on the beginning of Vasanta Ritu and on the first lunar tithis, Padyami. This Era, henceforth called as the Era of “Kalpa-adi,’ marked the beginning of the first Manvantara of Swayambhu—after which six manvantaras are past—the seventh or Vaivaswat, being now current, is the basis of our Hindu Astronomy. ‘Of this, already first three yugas of Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga and Dwapara in the 29th Maha Yuga are already over, the Kali Yuga having started on the day Lord Krishna passed away! On this point, all the Puranas are unanimous in their stand. All these Cycles—of Kalpa Maha Yuga, Manvantara and Yuga—have commenced on this “Era of Creation” or Bramha Kalpa. These, more or less conform to; and agree with the calculations of Geology and Radio-astronomy, in our space age! The Atharva Veda, the Maha Narayana Upanishad and the Tandya Bramhana support this basis for Vedic cosmology which is the backbone of Vedic Chronology on which, the Chronology of the Puranas even in the historical accounts of the Dynasties of Kings in the Kali Yuga, depend! Thus, Hindu Chronology is built upon a long Vedic tradition, backed by Vedic Cosmo- logy and Vedic Astronomy both of which form the basis of the Hindu Panchanga. These Cosmic cycles and sub-cycles fit into one another just as the full moon, new moon and month, fit into the Cycle of Sun in the “Year”. These are the units to count time as in a watch. The World Clock is the Zodiac! Comprehending Indian Chronology therefore, requires an understanding of 22 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR the Vedic Calendar and also its Astronomical foundation—on the basis of which, the Historical Chronology of the Puranas and the Mahabharata with its Dynastic accounts of the Kings of Kali Yuga stands, The ‘Panchanga’ is therefore not merely an astronomical calendar but also a civil calendar and an almanac of the different rituals yagnas anda host of observances, which the Shastras prescribe for the Hindu to perform. Even to- day, it is common knowledge that no Hindu can perform, even the simplest of rituals or ceremonies like the death ceremony, or the marriage-ceremony, the naming of a child and so on—without a reference to the “!Srishtyadi””—or the Era of Creation along with all the elements of the ‘Panchanga’ as to the current Nakshira, Tithi, Lunar month and also the soli-lunar year, from out of the cycle of 60 years; also the current Yuga, Manvantara and the present Kalpa into which, all the smaller cycles of time fit in! Cosmology thus became- the mother of chronology. To observe the star and day for the ‘Sankalpa’ one has to know the calendar, as Professor Dutt observed."* From this it becomes abundantly clear that the entire gamut of Hindu’s religious and social life is inseparably linked with his Astro-Cosmolgical calendar. The “Hindu Calendar” is therefore as much a religious instrument as it is a scientific measure of time. The Chronometry or the measurement of time, of the ancient Hindu astronomy bas therefore come to become an inseparable ingredient forming the core of the Puranas, Smritis and the Vedas. But were the Vedic priests having the competency and ability for making the required observations or calculations? To clear such of the most commonly prevalent misconceptions regarding Hindu astronomy beyond reasonable doubt, a brief survey of the historical development of Researches into the Vedic Astronomy may not be out of place here. Because, this has a great bearing on the reconstruction of Hindu Chronology as it correctly stood at the time of the Mahabharata and other Puranas divested of the preconceived readings that went into it, from time to time for tailoring it, according to the whims and the pet-theories prevailing of the nineteenth century Orientalists which have since become outdated, in the face of the modern scientific discoveries already referred to. The most commonly bandied-about misconception, a cliche almost, and a shibboelith, as we shall presently see, is that Hindu Astronomy is derived from the borrowings from the Greeks at, or about the time of Alexander’s Invasion (327 B.C,). The credit for this should go to Biot, who considered the Hindus as quite incapable of even the most elementary observations in astronomy. It all started with Bentley who tried to show that the ancient astronomical Sidhantas “were fabricated in the times of Akbar the Great”, with a view to deceive the emperor of a false notion of great antiquity. Bentley's views were contained in his “Historical view of Hindu Astronomy” published in 1823. These views were attacked by Colebroke and Sir W. Jones with the result that as “Bentley’s view’” as observed by Sri B.G. Tilak : ‘THE SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT OF TIME 23 “is now generally rejected by all scholars, it is unnecessary to go further into the details of the position maintained by him”.2 On the question, as to whether Indian astronomical methods, ‘were borrowed from Greeks wholesale, or whether the Indian astronomers, who had already a science of their own, improved it” as Tilak observes, by hints received from Alexandria, becomes clearly exposed in its hollowness, when we consider the alterations which occurred in the length of the solar year during the time of the Surya Sidhanta and later when we come to consider the originality of Hindu astronomy and its peculiar features in the succeeding pages. Another such allegation levelled against Hindu astronomy is that the Hindu ‘Nakshatras’ as described in the Veda are all borrowed from China who had a total of 28-Nakshatras called ‘Sicon’. This bogey was also started by J.B. Biot in 1840 in a series of articles in the Journal des Savends and subsequently published together, in book. form in 1859. He tried to prove that Hindu Nakshatras must have been borrowed from the Chinese, because the ancient Chinese records are dating back to 2,357 B.C., when the Vernal equinox was in Mao,which is the star Krittika, which was also the same star which marked the Equinox in Vedas. This was however, disproved by subse- quent researches of Tilak and Jacobi by showing, among other things, that the Indian Nakshatras were 27 in number whereas the Chinese ‘Sicon’ numbered 28! This argument was also adopted by Whitney in his edition of the Surya Sidhanta (1960). But Alfred Weber clearly exposed the weakness of this theory. Subsequently, B.G. Tilak conclusively proved that se Vedic Nakshtras were actually much earlier than the Chinese ‘Sicon’ If the Chinese system dated from the period when Equinox was in Mao in 2,357 B.C. then, the Vedas contained references to the Equinox in the Orion (Mrigashiras) and also in ‘Punarvasu’ in certain Vedic passages—which go back to 4,500 B.C. to 8,000 B.C. when Aryans were still in their Arctic home, according to Tilak. On this controversy, Professor Ramesh Chunder Dutt’? comments : “The eminent French savant Biot writing in 1860, described the Chinese system of Sicu as an indigenous Chinese institution, and the inference was, that the Hindu Nakshatras and Arab Manazil were borrowed from the Chinese, The German scholar Lassen was led to adopt this opinion. The profound scholar Weber, however, took up the subject, and in two elaborate essays published in 1860 and 1861, proved that the Chinese Sieu as well as the Arab Manzil “in respect of order, number, identity of limiting stars, and inequality of distance correspond to one of the most modern phases of the Hindu Nakshatras, prior to which these have their own peculiar history of development.” “Weber thus finally disposes of the theory of the Chinese origin of the Nakshatras, and further proves that the Arab lunar mansions were imported by the Arabs from India”. 24 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR Similar contention that Hindu astronomy had borrowed from the Babylonian and Mesopotamian System of lunar calendar, was also disproved. That was shown to be quite different from the Vedic calendar which is distinctly original, thus contradicting the argument of Thibaut.*! These findings of Tilak were further confirmed by H. Jacobi who independently arrived at the same findings, in 1893! This had shown clearly : “that in the days of the Rig Veda the Vernal-equinox was in Mrigashiras or Orion, and in that the Vedic texts, properly interpreted, clearly referred to a Nakshatra series older than the one beginning with the Krittikas at its head, thereby carrying back the antiquity of the Vedic civilization to the fifth millenium before Christ.2* (emphasis, mine). In order to trace how the ‘measurement of time’ has an ancient tradition from the Vedic days which survives through the Mahabharata age down to our own in the form of Jyothisha or almanak tradition, as obtaining in our Panchangas (or Hindu Almanak) it becomes necessary to digress a little here, into the intricacies of the Vedic Calendar. In this field of Vedic Chronology based on astronomic references, Sri Bal Gangadhar Tilak is the pioneer, who had made the astronomical references of the Vedic texts as the basis for calculating the date of the Vedas. . Enough material is presented by him in his books like the “Orion” and the “Arctic Home of the Vedas” to show that in dating these Vedic passages, the Astronomical references contained in these passages afford a more dependable base than the speculative estimates, or opinions of Vedic Scholars and Orientalists. His conclusions have also been further corroborated by Prof. Jacobi who had arrived at almost the same set of conclusions independently. Thus, the importance of the astronomical method of dating the past as a scientific technique was finally brought to the notice of scholars as a better method and more scientific than reliance on mere scholarly opinions, based on speculative estimates. Sri B.G. Tilak was however, aware that : “Indian astronomy was one of the first subjects which attracted the attention of Western Scholars after the existence of Sanskrit literature became known to them in the last quarter of the 18th century.’ But the datings given by these Western Orientalists to these Sanskrit texts were either biased or were dates, which were much more recent. This was so even where they applied the method of astronomical dating, for the simple reason that : “all the works examined by these scholars are post-vedic, and help us little in ascertaining the antiquity of Vedic Civilisation." THE SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT OF TIME 25 Depending on such sources, Western Orientalists like Max-Muller fixed the age of Vedic Civilisation (vide “History of Sanskrit Literature”) at 800 years before Buddha, or around 1200 B.C. But by following a stricter line of astronomical reasoning, Sri B.G. Tilak showed that : “these datings hardly corresponded with facts.” . . “This was the general opinion about the antiquity of the Vedic Civilisation before the publication of my Orion”. and Dr. Jacobi’s essay : “On the Age of the Rigveda” in 1893, in both of which, it was carried back to about 4500 B.C. on the strength of astronomical statements contained in the Vedic literature itself !"** It is not proposed to go at length into all these astronomical and mathe- matical arguments here, as it is neither relevant nor necessary where space forbids it, because even this brief survey of the field is enough to show that astronomical dating has been already attempted, even by the earlier writers on the subject, although their conclusions were hedged by a number of pre-conceived mis-concep- tions and bias, regarding Hindu Astronomy. This aspect we have to keep in view. For example, when the French astronomer Bailey, in his treatise on Indian Astronomy (1786) gave a great antiquity to Indian astronomy, there was a reaction to counter this trend, from Bentley. Bentley in his “Historical View of Hindu Astronomy” attempted to : “ascertain the age of Indian astronomical works by comparing the astrono- mical statements of these works with the positions he obtained by backward calculation, by means of modern astronomical tables. “By a reckless use of this method”, as Tilak observes : “he was led to the preposterous conclusion that many of the astronomical Siddhantas, were in reality composed, or fabricated, as Bentley thinks, in the times of Akbar the great, in order to impose upon the emperor a false notion of their importance and antiquity. He did not stop here, but attacked Sir W. Jones, Colebroke and other scholars for maintaining the opposite view. This drew forth a sharp reply from Colebroke who clearly showed how Bentley’s method, used exclusively by itself, was utterly unreliable.” The reason, mainly, is that in working out by backward calculation of astronomical positions, the use of planetary rates of motion (like the Lunar Tables) which are not valid or correct for periods so remote as those thousands 26 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR of years ago—since most modern tables or are accurate only for shorter periods, say of a few hundred years in any case—naturally the positions obtained by them were much different from what was visible in the heavens, at that time, Sephariel cites a classic example of such blunders caused by modern tables, in verifying the Eclipses observed by the ancients in very remote dates. He says : “{ shall now give a calculation in regard to the most ancient Eclipse of the Sun to which we have authentic reference. This one is on the authority of Confucius, who compiled the records from which the “Classical History of China” was written, This Eclipse is stated to have occurred at the New Moon of the Ninth Month.” The Chinese records recorded the Eclipse to have happened near autumnal Equinox, in the reign of Chang Kang, sometime between 2,157 and 2,144 B.C. and that it fell out in the Sth year of that King. And there occurred a New Moon near the autumnal Equinox on 12th October. ‘According to history, this happened between 7 and 9 A.M. in the morning. But as seen from the “modern” tables according to our own astronomers, Sephariel says “Tt is worthy to note that all existing Tables have erred in this Eclipse, and it has been agreed by a variety of astronomers—most of whom were not acquainted with Chinese date—that no such Eclipse happened at all. The reason for it, is that the faulty tables—including those published in the “Encyclopaedia” in 1858, show the Eclipse to have finished before the Sun rose on Peking.” Sepharial cryptically observes : “The lunations, however, keep to their dates.”"* Jilustrations can be perhaps added, where our “modern” astronomers con- sidered —certain eclipses and planetary conjunctions—as not to have occurred as reported by the ancients by observation, using our own modern faulty planetary Tables. One should not be over zealous to ‘correct’ the ancients, with such planetary tables of our own ! This mistake, or using modern planetary tables which were unsuitable for long periods, and which tables, were also not consistent with the ancient planetary tables used in Hindu Siddhanta Jyotisha, is also based ona further bias which these Western Scholars suffered from. It was the pre-conceived dogma that Indian Astronomical methods were borrowings from the Greeks wholesale, or from the Alexandrian school of astronomers. Jn the words of Tilak, two views were held, as to: ‘THE SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT OF TIME, 27 “Whether the Indian astronomical methods described in the post Vedic works were borrowed from the Greeks or whether the Indian astronomers who had already a science of their own, improved it by such hints received from Alexandria:” Colebroke held the latter view and Rev. Burgress the Christian Missionary who published the ‘Surya Sidhanta” with acommentary, held the former view. Whitney who edited the translation under the aegis of “American Oriental Society” in 1850 considered Indian astronomers as “quite incapable of originating any scientific theory or making any...even tolerably accurate...observations”. Subsequently, however, when Shanker Bal Krishna Dixit published his “History of Indian Astronomy” in 1896 in Marathi, he demonstrated with clear proofs that Whitney’s view “is simply the result of his prejudicies” and he advanced a number of astronomical facts disclosed in the Jyotisha texts of Hindu Siddhanta, as proofs. It was also pointed out by Plunkett in his “Ancient Calenders and Constel- lations” (1905) that the Greeks of the first century of the Christian era, held a very high opinion of Indian Astronomy. He also showed that, in the life of Apollonius of Tyana, his biographer goes on record that he learnt many things from the Sages of India, especially, matters of astronomy...just, as Alexander took with him to Greece, many scholars and philosophers, even according to recorded Greek testimony, itself! Another similar misconception arose, as noticed earlier, when J.B. Biot tried to show that the Indian Nakshatras were derived or borrowed from the Chinese constellations, whose era of 2235 of B.C. occurred when the Vernal Equinox was in “Mao” (Kritrika star of the Hindus). No doubt, most of the stars are the same in the Chinese and the Indian systems but the Chinese Constel- lations have stars at unequal distances whereas Hindu ‘Nakshtras’ are equal arcs of 13°-20' each, measured by the daily motion of moon, The Chinese stars were thus ansuited for the purposes employed by Hindu astronomy, All this finally led up to the publication of two essays in 1860 and 1862 entitled ‘Die Vedischen Nachrichten Von der Nakshtra” (the Vedic accounts of the Nakshtras) in which he collected all the astronomical statements contained in the Vedic texts. In these essays, he conclusively proved that the existence of ancient “Indian system of Nakshtras, with the Krittikas at their head, was fully borne out by passages in Vedic works of undoubted antiquity” : in the words of Sri Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Similarly, Weber’s belief that the Chinese constellations, Indian Nakshtras and the Arab “‘Manzil” were all derived from an unknown, probably western, possibly Babylonian source, was contested by Max Muller in his preface to the first edition of Rigveda in 1862, as groundless. Witney in his essay on “The Lunar Zodiac” published in the 2nd series of his “Oriental Linguistic Studies” showed that Weber’s theory has no basis and that it was—‘no better than a suspicion”—to quote his own words ! 28 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR, Not only so, later Babylonian researchers failed to show the existence of such a West-Asian origin, but still Whitney “fondly believed, the future would disclose”. Finally, Thibaut clearly showed?” that the theory of Babylonian origin of Hindu Nakshtras must be given up. Thus the validity of Indian astronomical constants and other elements, in their own right—and not as derivations or borrow- ings from Greek, Babylonian, Chinese, or Arab or any foreign source, has now been fully established. Prof. Max Muller observes : “The 27 Nakshatras, or the 27 constellations which were chosen in India as a kind of lunar zodiac, were supposed to have come from Babylon. Now the Babylonian Zodiac was solar, and in spite of repeated researches, no trace of alunar zodiac has been found, where so many things have been found in the cuneiform inscriptions. But supposing even that a lunar zodiac had been discovered in Babylon, no one acquainted with Vedic literature, and with the ancient Vedic ceremonial, would easily allow him- self to be persuaded that the Hindus had borrowed that simple division of the sky from the Babylonians.” Even the length of the solar year gives us one more proof of the antiquity of Hindu astronomy. The length of the year, as science knows, is not a rigid cons- tant, but undergoes a slow change over thousands of years. So, if we compare the length of the solar year as given in the different texts of Hindu astronomy, we have the following interesting data :— (1) Length of the solar year at 365 days—6 hours—12 minutes— the time of the commentary 36.56 seconds. Surya Sidhanta. (2) Length of the year according 365 days—6 hours—12 minutes. to Paulisha Sidhanta. (3) Length of the solar year 365 days—5 hours—55 minutes— according to the “Romasha— 12 seconds. Sidhanta”. (4) Length of the solar year 365 days—5 hours—S0 minutes— according to “Pancha- 36 seconds. Sidhantika” of Varaha Mihara. (5) According to La-Caille, the 365 days—5 hours—48 minutes— French astronomer of 18th 48 seconds. century. The above data—if carefully examined, leads to an interesting conclusion, namely that the length of the solar year is slowly undergoing a reduction 1 This is accepted by modern astronomers as well as the ancient astronomers. The actual ‘THE SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT OF TIME 29 rate of reduction in the length of the solar year is calculated to be 40.5 seconds ‘of time over a period of 4,900 years. Taking this scientific discovery as our basis, we can analyse the above variation in the length of the solar year obtaining at different times, from the above table. From the above data, we can work-out the length of the time required for the solar year to undergo so much change in its length, before reaching the present length. Taking the difference in the length of the year from the time of the writing of the commentary of Surya Sidhanta in the table above at (1) and that calculated by La-Caille in the 18th Century, we have a difference in length of 23 min—49 seconds. From this, it is clear that for the solar year to undergo this much of alteration, it takes 1,72,891 years 4 months 8/9 days |! Likewise on the basis of similar calculations, it can be shown that it takes 1,68,414 years—9 months—23} days, starting from the date of the “Paulisha ‘Sidhanta”. This gives us an idea of the length of time that must have elapsed since the days of the commentary of Surya Sidhanta for the length of the solar year to undergo the above alteration—a variation which would have been impossible te notice, had Hindu astronomy been really borrowed from the Greeks, who are quite recent. The above review is needed to-day, because even as recently as the fifties, the Calender Reforms Committee adamantly persisted in repeating, parrox-like, these discorded theories namely that (1) Indian Astronomy was borrowed from the Greeks, (2) making once again the persistent almost fashionable mistake of testing the ancient Indian Astronomical tables of planetary positions, the one observed at the beginning of the Kaliyuga Era with our own modern astronomical Tables, as Bentley did, and which Sephariel cautioned against; and lastly, (3) of ‘even proudly parading and repeating the long exploded myth—that Indian astro- nomers were incapable of making astronomical observations on their own, and consequently that the great planetary conjunction of the Kaliyuga Era must bea myth and that therefore, it is not based on observation. We shall revert to this, later on. But certain passing observations may be useful here. Certain: European scholars and even their Indian disciples ignorant of this historical background of these discarded view contend that the Vedic Rishis had no knowledge of the planets, nor could they make accurate observations. There- fore it may not be out of place to indicate Vedic references to 27 ‘‘Nakshatras” and planets, if only to trace the Hindu astronomical tradition as it continues right upto our own day and is still followed by a number of competent ‘Siddhantis’ or almanak-makers to this day, from days of the Vedic Calendar. The Vedic texts*® contain references to not only Nakshatras and other astronomical features, but also the planets too, These references were not un- ‘known to Hindu Vedic scholars or pandits. We may indicate a few here. In the Yajur Veda** there is a mention of the ‘Nakshatra Darsi’ or the observer of Lunar Mansions at the Purusha Medha. The Satapatha Brahmana refers to the choosing of a star for sacrifice (R.V.IV.3,3).° 30 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR Macdonnel in his “Vedic Index” refers to the two planets Sun, Moon and the 27 Nakshatras.?# Weber’ refers to planet Mars or “Bhumija” on the testimony of Yaska. Thibaut mentions about the references to planet Jupiter or ‘“Brihaspati”. Similarly, Ludwig refers to the five planets** in the Taittireeya Samhita. The “‘Nakshatra-Ishti” mantras of Veda, define each Nakshatra and its Presiding devata tor sacrificial and spiritual purposes. Thus the first star Krittika (Pleides) was presided over by ‘Agni’. The second star, Rohini (Aldebaran) was. likewise presided over by ‘Prajapati? while Shravana is ruled by Vishnu, Jyeshta by ‘Indra’, Swati by ‘Vayu’, Aswini by the Aswins, and so on. Not only so. All this lore actually formed a part of the well-known astronomic tradition even in the Puranas. The Ramayana thus compares Hanuman the son of Vayu, as he flies in the sky (Sundara kanda) over the sea “the Swati star”, a simile striking by its apiness, only if we know the Vedic traditition, that Swati is a nakshatra Presided by ‘Vayu’! Again the Mahabharatha in Bheeshma Parva™ refers to Prajapati’s star (Rohini) being afflicted by Saturn or “Sanaischara” afflicted, as an omen of praja (or people) being oppressed (peeda) by war—which is again a Vedic simile. Examples can be multiplied, but all these go to show that, the astronomical references which are found in all the Epics—Mahabharata being no exception— follow a Vedic tradition. A tradition in which, Nakshatras are astronomically referred to in the Vedic passages—from which, Sri BG. Tilak had calculated the dates of these passages, astronomically. Thus “Scholars” if they are ignorant of this Vedic tradition reading only the astronomical references in the Mahabharata in isolation, consider them as inter-polations only ! So far about the historical aspects of Vedic Research; a few words on the Vedic Calender also may not be out of place before leaving this topic of Hindu Astronomy—the most essential ingredient for understanding Indian Chronology. REFERENCES 1. “Introduction” to the ‘Aitareya Bramhana’—by Prof. Haug (p. 46, 47). 2. “Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients"—by Lewis (p. 10). 3. Ibid., (p. 24). 4. “Hinduism in the Space Age”—‘A Forgotten Chapter of Man” (Vide Ch. 42, pp. 598-603). Published by USCEFI (1975) New Delhi. 5. “Chinese Concept of ““Tao”—Vide : “I Ching"—“The Chinese Book of Changes"—by John. Blookfield (A Mandala Book Puplication Paberbacks 1976). 6 siaeae: worTafe: (Ait. Br. ti 17) HOIGARAT: (Ait, Be. iv. 22). Also in Tait. San (il. 5.7.3; vi, 5.7.4) aatdsorafe: “amea: geareHT 7 yeas Gq Safa: (Parijate Smritisata cit. Vide (Orion, p. 153). 7. Macmillon Co. (1949). 8. "Hinduism in the Space Age”—by E. Vedavyas (A Forgotten Chapter of Man, Vide p. 534-548). ‘THE SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT OF TIME 3 9. “Hinduism in the Space Age”—by E. Vedavyas (A Forgotten Chapter of Man) Vide 534-548 published by USCEFI (1975) New Delhi. 10. “The Great Idol of Tiahuanaco"—by H.S. Bellamy & P. Allen. 11. Ibid.—by Charles Berlitz. 12. Vide “A History of Civilization in Ancient India based on Sanskrit Literature”—by Romesh Chunder Dutt. Calcutta 1891. Thacker, Spink & Co. (p. 187) (Italics Mine). 13. Medicine is called “Ayurveda” (Literally, “Wisdom of Longevity”). 14. See the Table of “Taxonomy (Classification) of Vedie Sciences and Shastras” (Vide page 49 in this book). 15. Archaic Universal History (Puranetihasa) is called “Purana Samhita” which is older than even the Vedas (Vishnu Purana, Devi Bhagavat). 16. “A History of Civiliza ‘Anclent India”—by Romesh Chander Dutt Pub. Culcutta: ‘Thacker, Spink & Co. (vide, Chapter-VII. Law, Astronomy, and the Progress of Learning). indu & Buddhist Chronology"—by D.F. Cyrus Abayakocn (Astrological Magazine of BV. Raman, Bangalore July °74, p. 486). 18, “The different Phases of the moon were observed and were personified as deities. Raka is the full moon, Sinivali is the last day before the new moon, and Gungu is the new moco (If, 32). ‘The position of the Moon with regard to the Nakshatras or the Lunar mansions is also alluded to (Vil, 3, 20), and some of the constellations of the Lunar mansions are als> named in &, 85. 13). Vide, “A History of tion in Ancient India"—by Romesh Chunder Dutt (Pub. Calcutta : ‘Thacker, Spink & Co. Chapter-VII. Law, Astronomy and the Progress of Learning). . “Vedic Chronology” —by B.G, Tilak (1825) (p. 4). 20. Ibid. 21. “Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal""—Thibaut (1894). ‘Vedic Chronology—Vedanga Jyotisha”—by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1925) Published by Messers Tilak Bros, Gaikwar, Wada (Poona). 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., (Introduction) (p. 2). 25. Ibid. 26, Vide “Astrological Ready Reckoner"—by Sephatial, Foulsham & Comany (London) p. (37-39). 27. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1895) vide article by Thibaut. 28, “Rig Veda" 162, 9, 163. 29, “Nakshatra Darsa” at p. 431. Gazer at Lunar Mansions is metioned at Purusha Medha in Yajur Vedic (R. V. 162, 9x 163 AV. ii 33, 6). 30. Satapatha Bramhana’—refers to choosing a Star for sacrifice (R. V. IV, 3, 3). 31. “Vedic Index"—MacDonnel—243 (Vol. 1). 32, “Bhumija is Mars” (Weber, Jyotisha 10. N. 2). 33. Five Planets with Sun and Moon and 27 Stars in Rig Veda—see Ludwig (Taittireeya Samhita ii, I, 1, 2, 3, 9, 2). 34, Bh. Parv. HII. 31-32 (p. 5) Engl. Trans. by Pratap Chandra Roy Vol. IV (Datta Bose & Co. Calcutta). 17. Chapter Three VEDIC CALENDER-KEY TO VEDIC CHRONOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY THE MEASUREMENT of time, as we have today in the form of a calender com- prising of the year has its origin in the Vedic Ritual. Even the name of the “Year”, or “‘Samwvatsara’”, denotes a ‘Time cycle’, of ever repeating seasons. The Vedic cycle of seasons began with the first month of the year called “‘Agrahayani”, or “the first-coming” month. It began according to Tilak on the day the Sun’s Northerly course (Ayana) began or the Uttarayana day, which was marked by the Summer solstice. Starting with the solstice, there was an yearly cycle of Yagnas, Kratus, Ishtis, Savanas, Adhwaras, Makhas and Satras—each of which has a different and distinct role and function to perform in the Vedic cycle of yearly and 12-yearly Yagnas, although it has become customary to treat all the above named rituals as synonymous. “The ancient Rishis” as Sri B G. Tilak observes : “prepared their calender, mainly for sacrificial purposes... :.. offerings were made every morning and evening, on every new and full moon and at the commencement of every season and Ayanu.” The Krishna Yajurveda (I, 4, 14) clearly mentions the 12 months of the year along with the 13th or the ‘Adika-masa’ or the intercalary month. All the above kinds of years are discussed at length, by Dr. R. Shama Sastri in his book “Drapsa”—The Vedic Cycle of Eclipses.”* The 13th month or the inter-clary month (adhika-masa) was considered “dirty” or as a ‘Mala masa’ in which sacri- fices do not give the full benefit, without the purificatory rites. To those scholarly who still entertain ‘scholarly’ doubt as to, whether the Vedic Rishis were able in those days, to observe, calculate or keep records of astronomical cycles as early as 3000 B.C. to 4500 B.C.—we have striking evidence from science. Eric Dannikin in his famous best seller “Chariots of the Gods” published. photographs of a clay tablet containing eclipse tables for the coming one million years Il! This shows that, the astronomical capability of the ancients, either Mayas, Incas, or the, Vedic Seers, far outstripped the limited mental horizons of the 19th century orientalists who had seen no such scientific discoveries, in their day, and who had to depend entirely on their own unaided imagination, to base their presumptions upon, But let us revert to the topic of the Vedic “Yagna” and its calenderic significance. I have shown in my book “Hinduism in the Space Age”? that yagna as an idea is a much misunderstood concept, and as such it had to be again elaborated by Lord Krishna in the Gita’, Yagna, depicts a very complex VEDIC CALENDER 33 idea and a synthesis of Nature’s secret cyclic processes working in Man, and outside him, in Nature as a cosmic process. While going into these aspects of the meaning of the Vedic rituals it is necessary to notice that the Rig Veda considered the knowledge of the 12 months and rituals therein—as a very essential knowledge for the Vedic scholar. The Rig Veda (I, 25, 8) not only prescribes the cycle of yagnas to be performed in a yearly cycle of 12-months, but also a knowledge of the 13th month, as follows : “He who accepts the rites (dedicated to him) knows the 12 months and their productions, and thal which is supplementarily engendered.”* There is no need to multiply such quotations but it is enough to mention the names of the 12 Vedic months enumerated in the Krishna Yajurveda (I), 4, 14) which mentioned the 12 months as (1) Madhu, (2) Madhava, (3) Sukra, (4) Suchi, (5) Nabhas, (6) Naabhas, (7) Isha, (8) Urjie, (9) Saha, (10) Sahasya, (11) Tapa, (12) Tapasya, (13) Mala (intercalary month). The 13th month is also called Sansarpa or acreeping month which is compared to a snake, because it has reference to a Vedic Cycle of eclipses which are caused by serpent Rahu and Ketu which are known as Moon's nodes. But it can be seen from the different kinds of years in the Yagnas that the ‘Yagnas which are based entirely on the calendar are not merely secondary matters to the Vedic Rishis as Tilak and certain other scholars seemed to imagine, wherein duty of the sacrificer is merely to keep count of the calendar. On the contrary, the meaning of the Vedic Yagna with its mystic psychic effects combined with the effects of the planetary cycles or the seasons on Man provides the golden key for us to understand the meaning for the performance of these Vedic rituals. The role of Yagna in all nature and Man had, all along been badly misunderstood till today due to an ignorance of the astrobiological effects revealed by science. While we cannot go into this aspect of the meaning of the Vedic rituals in depth, here, it is nevertheless necessary for us to notice that the Rig Veda consi- dered. the knowledge of the 12 monthly seasonal cycle and the rituals therein, not merely as marking time, but as a very essential knowledge for the Vedic Rishi, But at different times, the spring started with a different fixed star in the Vedas each time; now commencing with Krittikas and again, at other times with Orion or Mrigsiras etc. The Vedas merely employed the seasons which are marked for Yagna purposes (or Savana) but used the fixed stars for marking the Junations and Yagnas at the full moon (Poornimasa Ishti) and New Moon (Darsa) times for the purpose of making these sacrifices. Thus, the Vedic calendar synchronised the different cycles by even resorting to intercaiation. According to Tilak : “Tt introduces at regular intervals, two intercalary lunar months, one in the midst and once at the end of a Yuga of five years and ordains that every 62nd lunar day (tithi) should be omitted in order to make the different reckonings of time—Savana (sacrificial or Civil) Chandra (Lunar) Nakshatra 34 ASTRONOMICAL DATING OF THE MAHABHARATA WAR (Siderial) and Saura (solar)—-correspond with one another”. Different Kinds of Vedic Years : As we have noticed, the Vedic year was closely linked with Yagnas or ‘Savanas’ of which there are of several kinds. The largest of these is called Satra Yaga or the 12-year-long “Yagna” which coincided with Jupiter’s transit of 12 yearly cycle or Pushkara. There are references to such a 12-year Satra Yagna not only in the Vedas and the Puranas but also by poet Bhava-Bhuti in his drama “Uttara Rama Charita”. There is also a mention of the year of 360 days in the ‘Nidana Sutra’ in which a few different kinds of the years of “Gavamayana” are mentioned, which include the Five kinds of years occuring ina “Yuga of 5 years”. These are (1) Samvatsara, (2) Parivatsara, (3) Anuvatsara, (4) Idvatsara and the (5) Idavat- sara. In addition, Shama Sastry also observes that : “The vedic rishis are also, besides, aware of the lunar year of 354 days, the sidereal solar year of 366 days, a sidereal lunar year of 351 days (with 13 months of 27 days each) and further,-they were also aware of, and made adjustments with, a ‘Savana’ year of 360 days by adding 9 days."* Next in the series, is the Satra Yagna of 1 year, of 12 months. Sacrifices less. than 1 year are also mentioned like the quarterly sacrifices of 4 months or “Chaturmasya’ and also 6-months-long sacrifices which coincide with an ‘Ayana’ of the Northern and Southern courses of the Sun are called ‘Prayaneeiya’ (Pra Ayana) and ‘Udayaneeya’. Returning to the details of the Vedic calendar, we find that the Vedic Rishis knew also a Jupiter-year, (Bathaspatya Samvatsara) counted with Jupiter's transit of 1-Rasi—as one Jovian year. Once in 12-years, it completed the Pushkara of 12-years which they balanced with the 5-year cycle or Yuga within a grand cycle of 60 (5x12) years—or five Pushkara Cycles. This Jupiter cycle was Marked by Yagnas called the “Satra Yagas”. “The Satras” as Dr. Haug? observe: “which lasted for one year, were nothing but an imitation of the Sun's yearly course.” The purpose of these Vedic rituals which are enjoined to coincide with specific astronomical events, has been differently speculated. Tilak is of the view : “that the ancient Rishis prepared the calendar mainly for sacrificial purposes.” We may not agree with Tilak’s inference that the sole purpose of these Vedic sacrifices was merely tv mark time, by keeping up with the astronomical events. Vedic astronomy involved other elements too, besides marking the VEDIC CALENDER 35 propitious time for Yagnas. It is more! Certainly the vedic Ritual with all its elaborate ritual-instruments, like the “

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