Mahabharata Quiz - 42

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Question – 42

Why did Bhishma wait for 58 nights for the Uttarayana? Since he had a boon to choose his end time, why couldn’t he choose a day closer to Uttarayana and avoid a long, grueling stay on the arrow bed?

Answer:        

Bhishma was an expert in the science of Time which we know from the way he did  a calculation to convince the Kaurava-s that Pandava-s did not reveal themselves earlier than expected (Question 15). How could he make a grave mistake in calculating the arrival of Uttarayana which marked the beginning of a new year in the 5-year Yuga scheme?

However, something seemed to have gone wrong going by the time features that Bhishma himself told for his last day on the earth. While lying on the arrow bed, he told Yudhishthira and others that he would leave the earth on the first day of Uttarayana coinciding with Shukla Ashtami in the month of Magha. And he did shed his body on that tithi when the moon was in the star Rohini.

This date looks strange because Shukla Ashtami can never become the tithi of any ayana in any year of the 5-year Yuga. Let us take a look at the table of the 5-year Yuga calendar produced in Question 39

In the first year, the Uttarayna begins in Shukla Pratipat. The Dakṣiṇāyana of the same year will begin in Shukla Saptami only because every 7^th tithi will be the first day of the next ayana. By this, the Uttarayana of the second year will begin in Shukla Trayodasi but Bhishma says that it was Shukla Ashtami! It was four tithi-s behind, but the star of the day continued to be the same (Rohini). How can this happen?

Since Bhishma very clearly and openly stated that Uttarayana starts on Shukla Ashtami, let us take it as the base tithi and construct the 5-year yuga calendar. The calendar so constructed throws up a big surprise that the subsequent Yuga didn’t start on the same day but regressed to a past date! A look at that calendar shows what I mean!

A systematic addition of 6 tithi-s and 18 stars for each ayana (as stipulated by Lagadha) beings the 6^th year (which is the 1^st year of the Yuga) to the previous lunar month, Pushya (Paush) and not Magha as it was when the Yuga started in Krodhi! The tithi was that of Krishna Paksha Ekadasi – four tithi-s behind the expected Shukla Pratipat of Magha.

By starting four tithi-s behind on Shukla Ashtami, the next round of the Yuga also lagged by 4 tithi-s by which the lunar month happened to be the previous one. Has Time slipped backward?

How can Time slip backward? The original calendar had gone awry such that Bhishma or any one of that time lost track of Time and ended up spending more time than required to reach the day of the Uttarayana.

The mismatch between the two calendars for two consecutive years has given us this unique puzzle on Time.

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