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Question - 10
Were comets known by the name 'Ketu' in the Mahabharata?
Answer:
No.
Though comets are mentioned with a prefix to Ketu, such as Kumudaketu, Maniketu, Dhruvaketu and so on, nowhere in the Mahabharata were the comets mentioned just as Ketu.
There is only one comet appearing the Mahabharata and it is mentioned by the common name for comet, namely, 'Dhumaketu'.
It was mentioned by Vyasa to king Dhritharashtra, before the war started. He said,
“dhūmaketur mahāghoraḥ puṣyam ākramya tiṣṭhati”
(MB: 6.3.12b)
This conveys that Dhumaketu afflicted Pushya terribly.
This is interpreted by Mahabharata researchers, as a comet sighted near the star Pushya. But the events described in the Mahabharata show that a comet attacked on a Pushya day.
The word 'Ulka' is also found to describe the shower of meteors around that time which went on for 13 days. A major part of the comet seemed to have hit the earth on the Pushya day.
Two internal evidences (in addition to more than 50 evidences) in support of the comet-hit are given below:
(1)
Any cosmic impact will be followed by numerous after-effects in terrestrial and atmospheric regions. Though all those were mentioned by Vyasa and Karna, the most important one was narrated by Vyasa. In the aftermath of a cosmic impact, the sun rays will be obstructed by a turbulent atmosphere. This will make the sun appear hazy, blurred and smoky. The same was expressed in the same context by Vyasa that the sun which was blazing in Jyeṣṭha, got sheared off its brightness and stayed appearing like a Dhumaketu.
"vapūṃṣy apaharan bhāsā dhūmaketur iva sthita" (6-3-26)
The word Dhumaketu appears here again for a comet. The sun appeared hazy like a comet.
(2)
Duryodhana chose the Pushya day for the appointment of Bhishma as the commander-in-chief of his army. He made this decision on the very day Pushya started (i.e., the moon started to enter Pushya). The next day when Pushya was running, the ceremonies were conducted for the formal anointment of Bhishma as the Chief. If a comet was in the star Pushya (sighted near the star), certainly such day would not qualify for an important event like this. The stars transited by comet are unfit for auspicious events. Duryodhana choosing that day shows that the comet was not at all in that star on that day. Only by that evening when the ceremony was coming to a close, the calamity had happened.
The comet was originally somewhere away. In the event of the comet breaking into pieces - as happens with many comets when they turn around the sun - its pieces were strewn in different directions. Some of them smashed on the earth on the Pushya day. The choice of the muhurta on the Pushya day for the anointment of Bhishma goes to prove that the comet was not in Pushya and the attack by the comet was unexpected. That attack was recorded by Vyasa.
Clarification:
There was only one comet mentioned in the Mahabharata. It is not true, as claimed by others, that there were many comets in the Mahabharata. Words such as 'graha', 'yamasya putra' and 'Surya putra' are interpreted to justify the mention of comets in the Mahabharata. Those words justify planets and not comets. In their inability to locate the grahas mentioned in such contexts, people have taken an easy course of equating them with comets. Appearance of more than one visible comet in the sky at a time is also never reported.
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