Mahabharata Quiz - 23

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Question – 23

Since 18th February, 3102 BCE is the Julian date equivalent of the Gregorian date 23rd January, 3101 BCE, what is wrong in using it to express the Kali yuga?

Answer:

This can be replied in two ways.

1.     The Julian year is not equal to the Gregorian year, and both these are NOT equal to the sidereal year* used by Indians for computing the Kali year. Let us compare the length of all these three types of years.

The length of the Vedic sidereal year = 365.2586806 days

Gregorian (Tropical) year =   365.24219878 days

Julian (Tropical) year = 365.24999971days (longer than Gregorian year by 11 minutes 14 seconds)

Since Julian year is used in the astronomy simulators, let us compare the Julain with the Vedic sidereal year.

Vedic Sidereal – Julian Tropical = 0.00868089 days.

The Vedic year is longer by 0.00868089 days than the Julian Tropical year.

In how many years, this difference would become 1 day?

115.1955077   Years =1 day

So, every 115 to 116 years one Julian day is lagging the Vedic year.

Calculate the number of days drifted in this way for 3067 BCE (in 5087 years from the year 2020) suggested by Dr. Narahari Achar and promoted by Dr. Manish Pandit as the year of the Mahabharata war.

5087 Years =44.157971 days

The Julian days in the astronomy simulator would be behind the Vedic sidereal day by little more than 44 days for the date 3067 BCE promoted as the date of Mahabharata.

The drift is higher than this for Mr. Nikesh Oak’s date, 5561 BCE, that is publicized as scientific. Thus any year derived from the astronomy simulator suffers from the defect of drifting Julian days.

What I have shown is simple arithmetic. Only experts can do the conversion accurately by considering the noon and mid night beginning of the Julian day and the sunrise time of the Vedic sidereal day.

2.     The planetary locations will be different for Julian and Vedic sidereal days. The converter between Julian and Gregorian helps in picking out dates in respective calendars having the same planetary combinations. For example, the conversion shown below for today will have the same planetary combinations in the dates shown for Julian and Gregorian.

The planetary combinations on 8^th August (today) will appear for 26^th July in Julian date in the simulator.

But there is no conversion table available between the Vedic sidereal and Julian calendar. Since there is a loss of 1 Julian day every 115 / 116 Vedic sidereal days the planetary combinations will not be the same in both. For an antiquated date like the Mahabharata, nearly 45 Julian days will be less than the Vedic Sideral days. That means, the planetary combinations shown by the simulator will be way behind the actual by 45 days.

In the case of Kali Yuga date suggested by Burgess, 18^th, February, 3102 BCE which has not included zero year, the planetary locations will be certainly different from 23^rd January, 3101 BCE. Some people think that by deducting one year, they can get the planetary positions right. How? Only the number of the year will be reduced in that case, but planetary position will be different.

The date 23^rd January, 3101 BCE is just the year number for the Kali years (3179 before CE 78 of Shalivahana Shaka). On the other hand, 17^th February, 3102 BCE will be 3180 years before CE 78. It violates the Kali Yuga calculation.

 * Sidereal year is the time taken by the sun to complete its travel around the zodiac starting from Ashwini. By the time it re-enters Ashwini, it completes one sidereal year. In reality is the movement of the earth detected by the movement of the sun around the zodiac. As such a sidereal day is defined as the time taken by the earth to complete one rotation around its axis with reference to a fixed star of the zodiac. 

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