Three orbital cycles of the Siddhantic concept (Part 2 of my paper on Siddhantic concept of precession)

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This is Part 2 of my paper on the Siddhantic concept of the equinoxes offering newer insights to emerging trends in Science on Precession.

My blog on the emerging trends in science leading to an evolving change in the perception of precession can be read here .

Part 1 of my paper can be read in August 2020 issue of https://astrologicalmagazine.com/

Part 2 of my paper can be read in September 2020 issue https://www.magzter.com/IN/The-Astrological-eMagazine/The-Astrological-eMagazine/Science/506351

In Part 1, I presented the western concept followed by the Indic concept of precession of the equinoxes, taking inputs from Surya Siddhanta and supported by Aryabhatiya. Contrary to the continuous precession of the western concept, the Indic concept proposes oscillating equinoxes of to and fro motion covering 108˚ within a span of 7200 years.

This concept is found endorsed by Aryabhata while expressing his age that 3600 years had elapsed since the beginning of Kali Yuga when he was 23 years old. This valuable hint will locate the beginning of Kali Yuga at 20˚ Taurus in the western model of precession, but at zero degree Aries in Indic or Siddhantic model. The following illustration expresses the difference between the two.

Kali Yuga started when the tropical vernal equinox coincided with the sidereal vernal equinox at zero-degree Aries. The last time this conjunction happened was in the year 499 CE that Aryabhata was referring to as his age in Aryabhatiya.  As per the western concept of the continuous precession of the equinoxes, similar conjunction could not have happened anytime in the western precession cycle for 26,000 years before 499 CE; so the conjunction at the beginning of Aries is not possible 3600 years before Aryabhata’s time, i.e. in 3101 BCE (3600 -499 = 3101 BCE).

This conflict can be resolved only if continuous precession is rejected. Aryabhata’s version reveals zero-degree Aries as the mid-point suggested by Surya Siddhanta! 3600 years after it crossed the zero-degree Aries when Kali Yuga began, it had come back to the same position in 499 CE when he was living.

In the 2^nd part of my paper, a similar version from other ancient texts is presented to show that the Indic society had followed (through observation for ages) the 7200 year cycle of the equinoxes. There is a common pattern found in expressing trepidation by means of number of revolutions in a Kalpa that works out to an average of 7200 years. The data shows that the rate of precession is not constant and it is reducing since the time of Aryabhata.

The constantly changing rate of precession throws up a challenge to dating the past events, for, unless the equinoctial location at the time of an event, say for example, Mahabharata war was known it is not possible to corroborate the planetary positions given in the Mahabharata text. Any attempt by scholars in Siddhanta to corroborate the planetary positions by using the derivations given by the astronomers of the past cannot give the exact date, for the reason that those astronomers had given the planetary longitudes from the equinoctial point of their time.

The continuous change in the trepidation is the cause for the slightly different values for the overall cycle, given by different Indic texts of different times of the past, but all of them hovering around 7200 years. For the data available since the time of Aryabhata we find the span of the equinoctial cycle varying between 7380 to 7471.9 years. At the current rate of precession, it is 7776 years.

With current science having detected an increase in the rate of precession, we are going to see the rise for the next 1500 to 1800 years – a kind of reversal of the decreasing rate noticed since 499 CE for which we have data. This will result in reduction in the span of the cycle at times going below 7200 years. On an average the cycle runs for 7200 years is the Indic wisdom handed down to us.

The current part of the paper also deciphers the supposedly “difficult passage” of Siddhanta Shiromani of Bhaskara II citing two hitherto unresolved versions, one from Surya Siddhanta and another from Munjala to establish that they are about the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit and the Yuga of Ayana (the overall cycle of oscillating equinoxes) respectively.

The eccentricity is found to be of a cycle of 1,44,000 years in contrast to Milankovitch’s  1,00,000 years. Munjala’s version is repeated by Vishnuchandra, giving credence to the derivation that there exists another cycle of the equinoxes consisting of three cycles of 7200 year oscillation discussed earlier. All the derivations are given in the following Table.

The ‘difficult passage’ in effect stands out to be the outstanding contribution of the Indic society in understanding the earth’s Orbital movement long before the recently conceived theory of Milankovitch. Further details can be read in the link given above.

Indic Past Series 9: Ancient past until Skanda decoded from the Manvantaras

The series so far:

Part 1: Solving Yayati mystery and Rama’s connection to Chola.

Part 2: Decipherment of Skanda- legends (Vishakha, Deva Senapati and Shura Samhara)

Part 3: Time period of Skanda deduced from climatic descriptions.

Part 4: Zodiac re-designed by Skanda.

Part 5: Skanda, the progenitor of Vedic culture

Part 6: Skanda’s time before Holocene, established through Tamil sources.

Part 7: Mārtānda: The Sun of Younger Dryas and decipherment of the story of Saṃjñā and Chāyā

Part 8: Understanding the application of the Yuga concept.

Part 9: Ancient past until Skanda decoded from the Manvantaras

The 9^th part of the Indic Past Series focuses on decoding the concept of the Manvantaras. A part of it on the 5^th Manvantara namely, Raivata Manvantara, when the first speech took genesis was released prior to this. The 9^th part covers all the six Manvantaras that have gone so far.

The discourse starts by exploring the meaning of Manvantara. This comes up with two revelations - Manvantara as a measurement of Time and an Epoch. This covers geological events. The story of Madhu and Kaitabha is deciphered in this context as mantle or ‘medas’ oozing out, ultimately forming the crust of the earth. It is from here the other meaning of Manvantara becomes relevant.

Manu forms the basis of a Manvantara – Manu being the embodiment of Dharma as per Shiva Purana. After a brief description of what this Dharma is about, the video continues to describe the Manvantaras based on the template found in the Puranas. This template covers the ‘calf’ and the feature to be ‘milked’ from the earth.

The first Manvantara as per Brahmanda Purana was that of Brahma when the wind was the calf and the seeds spread by the wind formed the factor that was milked. Brahma Manvantara is not found mentioned in the other Puranas, but this Manvantara gives continuity from Madhu- Kaitabha episode that was followed by the formation of trees on the crust of the earth.

This was followed by Svayambhu Manvantara, designated as the first Manvantara by the other Puranas. By the etymology of the name Svayambhu it is known that he was self-born and not dropped by God on the earth! The etymology concurs with the Darwinian concept of evolution – of man evolving from the previously existing life forms. It is for this reason he was known as Svayambhu. He, as the calf milked all the plants of the earth. This implies that man was not carnivorous by nature.

Svayambhu’s first knowledge was on use of mud, recognized as “Kardama” who along with “Chiklida” (moisture) brought wealth to man. So the western conception of Stone age has no relevance to Indic past.

The herbivorous life style of Indic man continues to be revealed in the next Manvantara too when man became Svārochisha – self shining by his ability to identify and collect food grains. This resulted in gaining the knowledge of medical and health related benefits of food grains.

Man evolved further by using the grains for growing crops! That period when he started growing crops is known as Uttama Manvantara when the calf was Devabhuja – the ‘hand of Devas’. This could refer to the understanding of the natural forces such as sunshine and rainfall and their importance in growing crops. Man had now realized the role of forces beyond his control and with this the first concept of Deva – the God had dawned.

A notable feature of this Manvantara is that cultivation had started very long ago. The role of sunshine in cultivation points to the locations in equatorial rainfall regions. In contrast Ice age conditions were continuing for very long in the northern parts of the globe including Europe and West Asia until the end of Younger Dryas.

Cultivation signals settled life in Uttama Manvantara. This was followed by the 4^th Manvantara namely Tāmasa Manvantara that signified darkness. This could be a reference to the Last Glacial Maximum that started 33,000 years ago which brought less warmth to the equatorial regions. There is no mention of what is milked at this time, but Bala-Bandhu was referred to as the calf. This period forced people to be huddled together that resulted in strengthening bonding and family life. Bala-Bandhu is more likely to be Bāla Bandhu – of people, mothers and elderly women in particular becoming guardians and protectors of children. From this, honoring the departed mothers must have started that gave rise to the concept of Mother Spirits discussed in an earlier episode.

Then came the 5^th Manvantara by name Raivata Manvantara when speech developed. That part of the video was already uploaded with the synopsis (Read here). Family concept that had come up by this time, helped in developing speech for communication. The location was in Shaka Dweepa, in the equatorial region, where Mount Kumuda was located. It came to be known as Kaumara by the time of Mahabharata, giving us the indication of the role of Kumara or Skanda in developing speech further as proper languages – that will be discussed in a future episode.  

This Manvantara also saw the movement of people. This resulted in spread of speech to different regions of the world.

This was followed by Cākshusha Manvantara, the 6^th Manvantara by which time man started developing deep thinking that is recognized as ‘vision’ or ‘eye sight’- lending the name Cākshusha to the Manvantara.

This Manvantara saw the peak of human intelligence by the discovery of ‘Bhavya’ – the heaven, the celestial sphere. The story of Dhruva happened in this Manvantara. The discovery of Dhruva nakshatra, concept of creation and year was made in this Manvantara by a combination of external and internal vision. Rituals were invented.

Following Dhruva, Daksha came into being – Daksha referring to a time of clever and able persons. The discovery of the zodiac with 27 stars traversed by the moon was made in this time. Puranas say that there were many Daksha-s in the past and all of them were terminated by sudden fire. Similar fate occurred to this Daksha of Cākshusha Manvantara which is encapsulated in the story of Daksha Yāga that was devastated by the fire unleashed by an angry Shiva. That part will be decoded in a future episode.

Following Daksha, Skanda was born that coincided with the end of Ice age and Melt water Pulses and followed by Younger Dryas. Skanda re-designed the zodiac and elevated Krittika as a star of the zodiac. The Shrāddha ceremony (ancestral oblations) was formalized by then.

This was followed by the current Vaivasvata Manvantara. Thus we find a larger Epoch of a Manvantara (Vaivasvata) with Catur Maha Yugas running into lakhs of years – within which many smaller Manvantaras have occurred. 

While dealing with references to Manvantaras in ancient texts , we must be clear about what is being talked about.

First speech of the Indic society in Raivata Manvantara by Revatī and Kāveri’s daughter.

This video is an excerpt from the 9^th episode of the Indic Past Series on Manvantaras (which is yet to be released).

The systematic analysis of the Manvantaras given in the Puranas shows a gradual development of man from a wanderer to a community man in permanent settlements. Permanent settlement was forced on him due to circumstances in Uttama Manvantara when man took up cultivation and development of family set-up during Tāmasa Manvantara. The close interaction within the family and community resulted in development of SPEECH which was recognized as a different Manvantara namely, Raivata Manvantara.

The birth of first speech or Proto Language is deciphered from a story given in Markandeya Purana. There was a sage by name “Rtavāk” meaning ‘proper speech’ to whom a son was born in the Revati star. The unruly behavior of the son irritated the sage that he kicked off the star Revati from its place!!!

As a result the star Revati fell on Mount Kumuda illuminating the surroundings and causing a lake. This is a reference to extra-terrestrial impact on the earth causing a crater lake. A beautiful damsel by name Revati emerged from that lake. (Revat means ‘jump’, ‘leap’ or ‘move’) She was nurtured by Pramuca, meaning ‘set free’, who intended to marry her to King Durgama. Durgama means ‘difficult to be controlled’.

The names seen until now are related to speech. It was set moving by Rtavāk which was ‘set free’ (Pramuca) and got to be connected with ‘difficult to be controlled’ (Durgama).

Durgama was already married to others, whose names indicate settled living, living in proper houses built with wood and Kāveri’s daughter!

Kāveri is a Tamil name with the etymology derived as Kā +viri, where Kā means Sarasvati and Viri means ‘expanding’. Sarasvati was not yet born then but the name Kāviri having the same meaning as Sarasvati was recognized then.

The video goes on to show how it was Kāviri, not Kāveri at Kodagu and at Omkareshwar – by having overflown. Water overflowing from a lake is Kāviri (Sarasvati). Vāk (words) overflowing from the mouth is Sarasvati and therefore Kāviri!

It was at the receptacle of Kāviri (it was not flowing then) the sage Agastya did a penance for 12 years to gain the power of Vāk (words) in Tamil after the 1^st Sangam regions were lost to the seas. Agastya who appeared at Dandaka Vana in the 11^th year of Rama’s exile shifted to the receptacle of Kāviri by the 14^th year of exile to prepare himself for inaugurating the 2^nd  Sangam Assembly at Kāvatam.  Where Vāk (words) needs to be promoted, there Kāviri gains relevance.

The video articulates on related topics and establishes that the first speech of the Indic society had its genesis in Raivata Manvantara at a region where Kaumara was located in Shāka Dweepa in the equatorial region.

The timing given by sage Markandeya can be identified with a comet-fall on the moon with the fragments falling on the earth in the equatorial region. (Similar event is deduced before the Mahabharata war that witnessed two 13-tithi phases). The comet-fall on the moon is recognized by the shift in the orbit of the moon narrated in the story by Markandeya. At the time of marriage of Revati with Durgama, the moon started resuming its old orbit by which it started going closer to the star Revati.

This early speech became the proto language from which Skanda and his father (Sundaresa / Shiva) picked out two well refined languages simultaneously, namely Tamizh and Sanskrit.  This will be explained in a future episode of the Indic Past Series.

The narration from Markandeya Purana establishes that the Proto language of the Indic society did not emerge in Europe or West Asia or North West of India. It had emerged in the Equatorial region, near Mount Kumuda, which came to be known as Raivataka and later as Kaumara during Mahabharata times. The probable time period of the genesis of this proto language was Last Glacial minimum.

Was Ravana a Tamilian? (My speech in Desiya Siragugal)

On the day the Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi conducted the Bhumi Puja for the construction of Ram temple at the birth place of Rama, a swarm of tweets trended the micro blogging site with the hash tag #LandofRavana  #TamilPrideRavana  and  #LandOfRavanan claiming that Ravana was a Tamil king who was wronged by Rama.

It was clear that this absurd war of tweets was the only way that certain elements in Tamil Nadu inimical to the BJP government could think of as a means of disapproval for the Ram temple coming up at Ayodhya. At the bottom of it lies the hatred for all Hindus and a plan to promote an idea that Tamils are not Hindus. For this they had taken up Ravana as an identity of Tamil people while completely forgetting the Brahmin origin of Ravana.

In this backdrop, I have given a short speech in a private YouTube Channel, Deisya Siragugal addressing four issues raised by the inimical forces.

After highlighting the fact that the hatred for Rama stems from the hatred for Hindus, I went onto to describe how this hatred was justified on the logic of “enemy’s enemy is a friend’. Since Hindus are treated as enemies, Rama, their God becomes the enemy of these elements. So Rama’s enemy Ravana got qualified to be their friend whom they defended against all sensibilities.

To name the oft repeated issues,

# they eulogized Ravana as a gentleman for not touching Sita without her ‘permission’.

# they condemned the ‘treatment’ to Shurpanakha of chopping her nose.

# they abused Rama for killing Vaali ‘unjustly’.

# they faulted Rama for forcing Sita to enter fire.

All these were in defense of Ravana, the Brahmin, by the same people whose hatred for Brahmins finds no limits.

I have replied to all these in the light of the question whether Ravana can be truly considered as a Tamil person. For this I have taken up Tirukkural as the sacred text of Tamils that they often invoke in support of Tamil culture.

I raised the question:  

‘Does one become a Tamilian by speaking Tamil or by following Tamil culture expounded by Tirukkural?’

There is no evidence to say that Ravana spoke Tamil while on the contrary there are evidences to say that Sita and Rama spoke Tamil.

Ravana didn’t live up to the culture emphasized by Tirukkural.

Tirukkural admonishes one who desires another man’s wife; Ravana did just that – by desiring Sita. Vaali also did the same by desiring his brother’s wife.

Tirukkural condemns meat eating; Ravana and Shurpanakha were man-eaters.

Tirukkural  extols the virtue of living blemish-free life; it is for this reason Sita on her own decided to walk on the fire. The same was done by Draupadi too at the end of Mahabharata war which finds a continuous resonance till date as fire-walking ceremony in Draupadi temples.

Finally I have given the family tree of Ravana on both paternal and maternal side to prove the fact that he was not a Tamilian by birth or by location. Even Lanka was not his own, but snatched by him from Kubera, his half-brother.

The video can be watched here:

My thoughts on Ram Janma Bhumi Puja

We crossed a historic moment at 12-46 PM today (5^th August 2020) when the Bhumi Puja for the construction of the destroyed temple of Rama at his birth place was done by the Prime Minister, Sri Narendra Modi. An emotional moment for billions of Hindus around the world including me.

Rama had everything not right in his life. His father decided to hand over the kingdom at a critical point in Time (Read here) that ultimately resulted in Rama losing everything including his wife. When he got back the kingdom, Time didn’t favor him live with his wife and see the birth of his children. When he identified his children, again Time played spoilsport by snatching away his wife once forever. Time also made him denounce his brother at the penultimate hour in his life. When he decided to cast off his mortal coils Time left his place desolate!

It was only in the last 1000 years, monarchs had started building grand temple at His place. But none of them could stand for long, in contrast to scores of temples of Tamilnadu that have withstood the vagaries of Time. 

Why this trouble to Rama’s place? 

Anything wrong in Time of building them? 

This thought is upper most in my mind, as I think about the choice of destructors and constructors by Time.

With so many thoughts on karma and players in the hand of Destiny which I cannot share in public, I decided to just pen the following verse of Periyazhwar with small changes.

பல்லாண்டு பல்லாண்டு பல்லாயிரத்தாண்டு,

பலகோடி நூறாயிரம்

மல்லாண்ட திண்தோள் ராமசந்திரா!  உன்

சேவடி செவ்வித்திருக்காப்பு

அடியோ மோடும் நின்னோடும் பிரிவின்றி ஆயிரம் பல்லாண்டு

வடிவாய் நின்வல மார்பினில் வாழ்கின்ற சீதையும் பல்லாண்டு

வடிவார் சோதி வலத்துறையும் சாரங்கமும்  பல்லாண்டு

வளமாய் நின் ஆலயமும் வாழ்வாங்கு வாழிய பல்லாண்டே!