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Question – 90
Under what circumstances
two consecutive Full Moons happen in the same star, say in Krittika as noticed before
the Mahabharata war?
Answer:
This rare phenomenon
can be pictorially depicted for better understanding.
This is the normal
movement of the sun and the moon in clockwise direction.
The red circle is
the ecliptic, the path of the sun which is in fact the orbit of the earth.
The dotted circle
in blue is the orbit of the moon. It is inclined by 5 degrees to the ecliptic.
The sun and the
moon move along the respective paths in clockwise direction as shown by an
arrow mark.
The two orbits
(lunar and ecliptic) cut each other at two points called nodes, which are known
as Rahu and Ketu. The orbits are not stationary. They keep moving. As a result,
the Rahu and Ketu keep moving – but in anti-clockwise direction. That is also
shown by red arrow marks.
From Rahu to Ketu,
the path of the moon will be above the ecliptic. From Ketu to Rahu the lunar
path is below the ecliptic. This can be watched with the naked eye for over a
phase when we see waxing moon rising in one corner of the west and ending up as
Full moon in another corner of the east. Nowadays, with the help of apps, we
can follow the moon crossing the Rahu or Ketu. In Mahabharata days, they
observed with the naked eye.
Now look at this picture.
Something happened
to the lunar path that it shifted from dotted blue to plain blue orbit.
The moon at ‘M’ has
shifted to ‘M1’ which is in an altered orbit. That orbit cuts the ecliptic at R1
and not R.
R represents Rahu.
Now Rahu has moved to R1. This is told by Karna that Rahu is moving towards the
Sun. This dialogue is construed by many that eclipse is indicated.
But no, in normal
course Rahu and Sun meet from opposite directions. Never can Rahu go clockwise,
behind the sun. In this case it shifted towards the Sun, which is odd. This was
observed by Karna by watching the sky.
Since moon has
moved from M to M1, which is a forward position, it reached the sun to cause
Amavasya early.
That also happened
to be the same part of the sky the previous month.
That is how two
Full Moons occurred in the same star consecutively for two months.
This is the simplest
way to express what happened.
But how it
happened is explained by the comet fall.
The thrust force
of the falling debris caused the moon as well as the earth to lose their initial
equilibrium which however was restored after some time.
The month after
Margashira, the moon has taken a normal course.
