My Master Class lecture on “Mahabharata Astrology”

I am glad to share the link to my Master Class lecture on “Mahabharata Astrology” delivered on 9^th October 2021, on the occasion of the 109^th Jayanti of Dr. B.V. Raman, organized by Raman & Rajeswari Research Foundation chaired by Bangalore Niranjan Babu, the son of Dr. B.V. Raman.

Starting with the basic classification of Astrology, I showed how all the planetary references in the Mahabharata, tagged as nimitta-s are part of Phala Bhaga of Jyothisha, that rejects any reference to the newly discovered planets, namely, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. This clarifies that any work on dating the Itihāsa-s, done by using these planets can be rejected outright at the outset.

Then I went on to show how all the planetary and the calendar references in the Mahabharata are aligned with Vedic astronomy and the Ashtānga system of Time. Some salient points are as follows:

(1) Only 27 functional stars at any point of time, and not 28.

(2) The 13^th tithi Amavasya was caused by a disturbance to the Z-axis of the Earth- Moon system by an extra-terrestrial impact making the moon to go on a shorter revolution, that is perpetuated into memory by the concept of Bodhāyana Amavasya.

(3) This disturbance had thrown off the earth from its X-Y axis temporarily, which caused it to take a longer path to reach the Uttarāyaṇa-point, making Bhishma to wait for his exit. This anomalous change in Time is remembered as Ratha Saptami.

(4) This also caused the earth to wobble more than normal before attaining its natural orientation that is detectable by unusual appearances of the sky reported by Vyāsa in the altered appearance of Arundhati-Vasishtha pair and the reverse movement of Dhruva and Mars.

My paper published on this cosmic impact in the Academia Letters (https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1385) brought me into contact with one of the reviewers of my paper, Prof. Joachim Seifert of Germany. He shared with me the graphs and the details of an extra-terrestrial impact already recorded in the Temperature chart of Holocene. The year was 3136 BCE, that I validated as the year of the Mahabharata war, that took place thirty-five years before the beginning of Kali Yuga, when Krishna left. 

The verses of the Mahabharata suggesting the impact that I shared with him convinced him further about the impact that he recognized it as the “Hastināpura Meteor Event”, the details of which are going to be published by him in his upcoming paper in a science journal. This event becoming the world’s first ever recorded eye-witness account – earlier than the Kaali impact of Sweden – the Mahabharata is set to come out of the tag of Mythology and as a true account that did take place in 3136 BCE, 35 years before Kali Yuga began.

From this I went on establishing the Vedic concept of the to-and-fro oscillation of the equinoxes -fundamental to understanding the lack of change in month-season combination - that is totally different from the ever-precessing equinoctial model of the west. This model rejects the axial precession of the earth – which is also revealed by the archaeo-astronomy of the ancient monuments of the world – and supports the precession of the entire solar system caused by the helical path of the sun as it surges ahead in the Universe. This path causes the sway of the sun for 27 degrees on either side of the sidereal Aries in lateral view from the earth. As a result, the seasons do not change much but oscillate around Caitra which we have retained as the standard configuration at all times in the past and even now.

In this limited movement of the equinoxes, there are only three pole stars identified by the Vedic sages. Abhijit that appears as a pole star in the western system of precession cycle has never been a pole star but only a zodiacal star. Similarly, Agastya can never be a pole star in the south as it lies outside the path of the limited oscillation. 

In this context I am explaining the crucial factor called the “Ayanāmśa”- the difference between the tropical position of the equinoctial sun from the sidereal position which is very much a part and parcel of horoscopy even today, but missing in western astronomy. The absence of this concept in the astronomy simulations shows absurd levels of addition of the ayanāmśa value, say, 35 to 45 degrees for 3067 BCE and 5561 BCE, 150 degrees for Bali’s time when the vernal equinox was said to be in Virgo and 180 degrees if one dates the Ramayana at 14,000 years ago. Were the Vedic sages so illogical in conceiving the ayanāmśa concept with such large deviations?

In a continuously precessing equinoctial system, there is no need for the ayanāmśa, but then the sages had proposed the use of ayanāmśa shows that the equinox was not continuously precessing. The ayanāmśa concept based on the oscillatory model of the equinoxes, ingrained in our more or less static state of month-seasons and incorporated in casting our horoscopes, must make us realize how irrelevant it is to use the western astronomy calculations that have no place for ayanāmśa correction.

In this context I have shown that it is not possible to extrapolate or approximate the rate of the ayanāmśa for the past. The only exception being the zero degree point of the sidereal Aries, which the sun crosses every 3600 years, where the super conjunction of all the planets (except Rahu) had taken place at the time of the departure of Krishna when Kali Maha Yuga began. That date (22^nd January 3101 BCE) is reproduced from Jhora for Vedic / Surya Siddhanta ayanāmśa, Lahiri ayanāmśa and Pushya Paksha ayanāmśa along with the simulation from the Stellarium astronomy software. Only the Vedic / Siddhāntic ayanāmśa shows the congregation. All credit to Sri. Vinay Jha who computed this from the ancient works.

I further went on to demonstrate how the eclipses and the planetary data found in our inscriptions do not match with the astronomy catalogue computations used in the astronomy simulators and in the Jhora astrology simulator. By 400 years ago, the position of both the sun and the moon had deviated. This had increased more by 1000 years ago. Prof. Vahia’s research also establishes that the NASA data does not concur with the eclipse sightings in India.

The cause can be traced to the inability to solve the n-body equations. Any eclipse should solve 4-body equations, involving the moon, the sun, the star in the backdrop and the latitude and longitude of the observer.

Mr. Nilesh Oak claimed in his book on the date of the Mahabharata that the makers of his software vouchsafed for the Proper motion of the stars in his simulator. That pertains to the single-body equation with no scope to solve the other problems that must have been addressed to make them appear in a particular configuration in the observer’s sky.

Similarly, Prof. Achar also addressed the single-body equation when he wrote in his 2014 paper that the motion of the slow-moving planet such as Saturn is enough to date the Mahabharata war. His rationale was that Saturn with 200 revolutions in a period of 5000 years compared to 60,000 revolutions of the moon in the same period, had less margin of error, but simulations show that the location of Jupiter, another slow-moving planet could not be correctly identified in the simulation in a very recent past, say, in 1601 CE, due to problems in getting the precession rate of the day accurately.

Though he agreed that eclipses cannot be simulated correctly for periods 5000 years ago, he did not seem to realize the mismatch within the four bodies – the sun, the moon, the background star and the earth in the event of an eclipse not simulated correctly. At best he thought that the simulators concur with the astronomy catalogues, but of what use they have for Vedic astronomy calculations?

Compared to any combination, the Kali Yuga congregation is a 10-body problem which can be solved only in the limited equinoctial model at the point of the zero ayanāmśa, at the beginning of sidereal Aries.

Unable to reproduce the Kali Yuga date, the colonial writers rejected it as fabricated. Fleet even rejected the Janamejaya inscription that incorporates 8-body equation on the pretext that the date is impossible. As one coming from a background that believes that the earth was created only 5000 years ago, he could not accept the prospect of advanced dynasties in India at that time. Why should we inherit a colonial obsession and reject the history of Janamejaya, the second king of Kali Yuga?

Our time scale is such that we have 9-body equations concurring at every moment of Time. They are not reproduceable at a later date due to limitations in calculating the precession rate and the current limited knowledge of the equinoctial movement. The sages who handed down the knowledge of the limited equinoctial movement did not give us any formula for calculating precession at any point of time. They wanted us to watch the shadow of the sun regularly to calculate the deviation and adjust it as ayanāmśa. For now, it is Lahiri ayanāmśa but at the beginning of sidereal Aries, it was zero ayanāmśa. Fortunately, this point happened to see the Kali yuga conjunction on 3101 BCE. Thirty-five years before that, the Mahabharata war had taken place (3136 BCE).

 

The age of Krishna

There is authentic record on Krishna's exit date but not on his birth year. If there is an authentic year, we would be celebrating it by a year number like how we mention the Kali date as 5123rd year as of Mesha this year (2021). Why no such number for Krishna's birth anniversary?

We know we are in 5123rd year of Kali. This is actually the anniversary of Krishna's departure. We do tarpan on that day even now - it's Mesha maasa pirappu.

If he had lived for 125 years, then it means Arjuna outlived him, for he departed after Krishna. He was three months younger than Krishna but left more than seven months after him . If Arjuna was 125 at his death time, Bhima was 126 years then and Yudhishthira  127 years of age. They lived longer than Krishna. Why these are not found mentioned anywhere?

Looking at the available evidence in Harivamsa, Krishna married Rukmini when she was 16 years old. So Krishna must have been older than 16.
Let's assume he was 20.
They got 10 children.
In the meantime Arjuna visited Dwaraka on his 12 yr vanavasa. After that Pandava exile for 13 yrs. After that they lived for 35 years.
So
20+ x + 12+ y + 13 + 35
= 80 + x+ y

X+ y occured before exile.
So 32 + x+ y was the age they went on exile.
Assuming x + y = 10 , they were 42 when they went on exile.
Actually x + y were very small time with not much info in Mahabharata.

So roughly we can say the war was fought when they all were around 50 years or in their 50s.
Then they lived for 35 years.
So they all have left in their 80s.

Ram Setu: Man-made and not before 7300 years ago. (Article by Sandhya Jain)

From 

Faith gets evidence from Science

by Sandhya Jain 

(Earlier published in Panchjanya.com in Hindi )

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is set to undertake the first scientific investigation of Rama Setu, the isthmus between India and Sri Lanka that enabled Rama’s army to cross the ocean and reach Ravana’s kingdom to rescue his wife. The Setu is a 48-km long chain of corals and shoals that scholars believe is a natural formation that was augmented by human hand. The ASI believes that studying this underwater formation will “help determine the age of the Ramayana period.” The study will be undertaken by the CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, using radiometric and thermo luminescence dating for geological timescale. 

Prof. Sunil Kumar Singh, director, NIO, said the three-year probe, to begin in March 2021, aims to determine if Ram Setu is man-made and establish its age scientifically. The results will be verified and co-related with information in Ramayana and other scriptures. The age of the sediments will be determined via Carbon dating techniques. Investigations will cover a range of scientific techniques such as material composition, sub-surface structure, and excavation of remnants or artifacts, if any, from the site. Underwater photography will help determine any habitation remains in the area. Later, scientists will drill into the structure, gather samples and undertake laboratory-based studies.

Prof Singh noted that some scriptures mention wooden slabs along the Setu. If these existed, they would have fossilised by now, and the team will search for them. As the sea bed around the Setu is shallow, barely three to four metres deep, it should be easy to study the structure. This fact is one of the major arguments against dredging the area to accommodate large modern ships.

Dr Badrinarayanan, former director, Geological Survey of India, stated in an interview (Rediff.com, July 31, 2007) that Ram Setu lay in a volcanic region with hot spots underneath; it was constructed around 7000 years Before Present (BP). Asserting that the top portion “appears to be a man-made structure”, he explained that it is originally a natural divide separating the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, so the geological characteristics are different on either side.

During the Ice Age around 18,000 years ago, the sea level was lower by 130 metres than at present, due to de-glaciation. Around 7,300 years ago, major flooding caused the sea level to rise 4 metres higher than what it is today. But the bund linking India and Sri Lanka is not a mere sand dune.

The Geological Survey of India conducted surveys for the Sethu Samudram Canal project authorities in 2004-05. On approaching the structure, they found a sudden rise in the land level: from 10-12 metre it rose 1.5 metre. The northern side is the turbulent Palk Bay that is prone to cyclones, and the tranquil southern side is the Gulf of Mannar which is pristine. It hosts nearly 21 islands full of corals. The GSI did some drilling at the deeper level of about 180-200 metres, but seems not to have probed the top portion.

The National Institute of Oceanography (NIOT) dug around 10 bore holes along the Adam’s Bridge alignment; four were along the islands (where sands keep shifting) and six in the water. It found that everywhere, below the top six metres, there were marine sands on top and below a mix of corals, calcareous sandstones, and boulder-like materials. Further below, up to 4-5 metres, again there was loose sand and after that, hard formations.

This, according to Dr Badrinarayanan, shows the structure is not natural. Corals are found only on rocks and hard surfaces. But on the Setu, below the corals and boulders, were loose sand, and on top of the loose sand, formed when the sea level was low, divers found boulders, which normally occur on land. The boulders are not a marine formation. Somebody dumped the boulders to use the structure as a causeway.

In Rameswaram, Pamban, Tuticorin region, one can see old corals on the land, because the sea level was 4 metres higher at the time they were formed 7,300 to 5,800 years ago. Then, from 5,800 to 5,400 years ago, the sea level fell, and from 5,400 to 4,000 years ago, it rose 2 metres higher than it is today. Hence, we find corals at two levels.

Between 5,800 to 5,400 years ago, or around 4,000 years ago, somebody brought all the boulders to the Setu. All aerial pictures show the Setu as 2 to 3 km wide. It is high on the eastern side, so someone took advantage of the raised portion and dumped the boulders to cross the waters. On the Rameswaram islands and in Pamban, on both sides of the railway bridge, one can see such formations and raised corals, which suggest that quarrying was done there. Since no one will dump materials for 30 km, the task was undertaken to cross the sea. The boulders are compact and light.

The region is geologically and geo-tectonically sensitive. Drilling revealed hot springs of 60 to 70 degrees Celsius. Earthquakes in Sri Lanka are felt in India, which means a major fault-line runs there. Towards the north and south, are remnants of old volcanoes.

It seems obvious, therefore, that widening the water channel could activate the fault-line and trigger seismic activity or earth quakes. It is well known that cyclones or tsunamis in the Bay of Bengal are contained by the Setu, or they would devastate southern India.

*

Tamil sources uphold the significance of Ram Setu as national heritage. Scholar Jayasree Saranathan observes that Valmiki Ramayana mentions a tsunami-impact at the isthmus just before Rama built the Setu, and probably caused the submergence of Southern Madurai around that time. Rama and the Vanaras reached the shore (VR 6:4) and waited for three days to find an opening in the ocean, failing which Rama shot an arrow to part the waters. After much tumult in the waters, Sāgara (God of the Sea) appeared and promised to hold back the waters so that the Vanaras could build the bridge, which they did in five days.

Saranathan puts Ramayana events at the time when the old Tamil kingdom of Pandyans was ruling in the South. Valmiki Ramayana mentions Kavatapuram, capital city of the Pandyas; there is also a corroboratory reference to Ravana in the Sinnamanur copper plates of the Pandyans. The copper plates mention that the Pandyans often clashed with Ravana and made him seek truce, or negotiated with him for some reason. This proves that Ravana was not a mythical character, and that Ramayana happened. Saranathan estimates that per literary and epigraphic evidences, the Ramayana period must have happened after 5550 BC when Kavatam was the capital of Pandyan kings. Prof Pushkar Bhatnagar puts the date at 5114 BC, based on astronomy-inputs of Ramayana.

When Sugriva told Hanuman and the vanaras to search for Sita in the southern direction, he said that after crossing river Kaveri, Agastya’s abode and river Tamraparani, they would reach the Kavatam of Pandyas (VR, ch. 41-19). Thereafter they would reach the Southern Ocean and could reach Ravana’s Lanka from Mahendra hills. Kavatam was submerged in the third deluge 3500 years ago.

Ram Setu was an engineering feat of its time. Mandodari knew Ravana would lose the coming war when she learnt about the bridge: “The day when the terrific monkeys built a bridge on the great ocean, that day itself I believed that Rama was not an ordinary mortal.” (VR, 6-111-11)

*

Rama Setu has an illustrious history and has fascinated non-Hindus for ages. The 11th century scholar Al-Beruni observed, “Setubandha means bridge of the ocean. It is the dike of Rama, the son of Dasarath, which he built from the continent to the castle Lanka. At present it consists of isolated mountains between which the ocean flows”. Early European travellers noted that the Setu could be used to reach Sri Lanka at low tide. Temple epigraphs and travelogues recorded in the Madras Presidency Gazetteer of 1893 said this was possible up to 1799, after which the rough sea and changing tide patterns made it difficult. Interestingly, the Sinhalas believe that Ashoka’s son Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitra walked over the bridge.

NASA satellite images reveal a broken bridge on the ocean floor, with unique curvature and composition that reveals it to be man-made, about 1,750,000 years old, coinciding with the first signs of human habitation in Sri Lanka. In March 2012, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa urged the Prime Minister to declare it a national monument on account of its “immeasurable historical, archaeological and heritage value”.

Rama Setu falls within the Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere, set up by the Government of India in 1989 as South Asia’s largest protected marine ecosystem. It has 3,600 species of plants and animals, including sperm whales and dolphins, 117 species of corals (in Indian territorial waters alone), and many varieties of fish and crustaceans. The marine life on the Sri Lankan side is even richer. The Bar Reef off the Kalpitiya peninsular has 156 species of coral and 283 fish; two other coral reef systems adorn the seabed around Mannar and Jaffna. There are huge banks of oysters, Indian Chank and Sea Cucumbers adjacent to Mannar.

*

Commander Alfred D. Taylor of the Indian Marines mooted the idea of a shipping channel across the Palk Strait in 1860, to shorten the route for ships sailing between the west and east coast of India. In 1955, the Government of India appointed a Committee headed by Dr. A.R. Mudaliar to examine if a channel at Mannar could really save nearly 780 km of sailing distance and 30 hours of sailing time for ships. The committee said the project was feasible but urged an overland passage instead, as a channel cutting through the Setu would suffer from shifting sandbanks and navigational hazards. This effectively negated the project.

Sri Lanka’s National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency warned that widening the channel would increase the water flow from the Bay of Bengal to the Gulf of Mannar, and disturb the inland water balance and Mannar eco-systems. Fishermen opposed the project as shipping and fishing cannot coexist in such a narrow waterway.

Moreover, data from 1860 to 2000 showed that cyclones hit the region every four years and severely erode the coast. Tsunamis such as the one in 2004 can be even more lethal. The project failed to study the sedimentation pattern of Palk Bay, where the open sea constantly brings sand that could keep the channel shut for much of the year. The Suez Canal was cut through land, but needs annual desiltation. Naval experts opined that the channel would be unviable as the large modern-day merchant ships or oil tankers would not like to reduce speed, switch fuels, and incur extra costs like canal charges and pilot navigation assistance to negotiate it, but would prefer the open seas around Sri Lanka.

The Setusamudram project was launched in 2005 at the behest of the DMK, an important partner in the UPA government; dredging began in 2006. Hindu leaders immediately met the President of India to protest against the destruction of the Rama Setu. In October 2008, T.R. Baalu, DMK minister in the Union cabinet, filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, claiming, inter alia, that the Rama Setu was destroyed by Rama himself while departing from Lanka. Neither the Culture Ministry nor the Shipping and Road Transport Ministry were informed about the submission.

As Congress went into damage control, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said, “In the first affidavit, the government said there is no proof of Rama’s existence. Then there was widespread anger and it withdrew the affidavit. In the next one, it said it was a matter of faith and was up to the court to decide. Now they are saying that Rama himself destroyed the Rama Setu, which means they are admitting that Rama existed.”

In 2012, the RK Pachauri committee warned that shipping in the Gulf of Mannar could cause oil spills and pollution, damaging the soft-coral reefs, marine turtles, and endangered sea animals such as Dugongs and Green Turtles, besides affecting the livelihoods of fishermen. It deemed the project “unviable both from the economic as well as ecological angles.”

In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party promised in its election manifesto that the Setu would be protected as “part of our cultural heritage” and because of the strategic value of its vast thorium deposits. The qualitative value of this intangible heritage may now be established by the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Institute of Oceanography.

Paper-back edition of my book, “Oral cancer -Astrological Prediction and Remedies”

Following the publication of my e-book on the astrological prediction of oral cancer, I am happy to bring out the paper-back edition now (248 pages). 

I can be contacted through the comment section here or by direct message in my twitter page (@jayasartn) for the purchase of this book or by sending a request with the postal address to jayasreebooks@gmail.com

The book is priced at Rs.250 and available only within India. 

Sample page

Health-chart by do-it-yourself model 

This book serves as a guide in medical astrology not just for the astrologers and astrology enthusiasts, but also for those who have no previous knowledge of astrology. This book is the first of its kind in detecting oral cancer in the horoscope. It also offers techniques of predicting different types of cancer, diseases of the mouth and the face including various kinds of eye problems, speech disorders, cleft palate and five types of non-cancerous and pre-cancerous lesions in the mouth. A section on palm lines related to prediction of diseases is added. More importantly the book offers simple astrological remedial measures, the scientific rationale behind them and the methods to derive remedies from the horoscope.

Preview is available in the e-book in the following links.

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B099NHBVPJ  (India)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099NHBVPJ  (US)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B099NHBVPJ  (UK)

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B099NHBVPJ  (Australia)

 

 

My Peer-reviewed paper on the cosmic-impact during Krishna’s peace mission in the traditional year of Mahabharata war (3136 BCE) published: The date vindicated by Science.

 The date of the Mahabharata war is centred around three research questions:

                        I.           Why did Bhishma, an adept in calculation of Time that he exhibited in deriving the exact duration of Pandavas’ exile, fail to know the date of Uttarayana (winter solstice) at the time of his fall forcing him to wait for more than a month?

                      II.           The month of waiting appearing to be an Adhika Maasa from the textual description, how could an Adhika Maasa be possible at that time (Maagha month) when the earth was passing through the perihelion, faster than normal?

                   III.           Did the earth-moon system suffer a terrible cosmic impact, given the fact that Vyasa referred to Amavasya (no-moon) on the 13^th tithi and a change in the mark on the face of the waning moon?

The key to all these three questions lying with the 3^rd question – that can be cross-checked by scientific records - I sent a paper to Academia Letters fulfilling the requirement of adding a case study or an idea to a previously published research paper (word limit 1600). Since I already zeroed in on Piora Oscillation coming close to the traditional Mahabharata date (3136 BCE), I went through all the papers and zeroed in on Mr. Joachim Seifert’s paper on climatic pattern in Mid-Holocene and sent my paper to Academia Letters.

I am glad that it was approved by 19 scholars, including Mr. Seifert who did concur with a cosmic impact in the year 3136 BCE. His review is re-produced below. In my interactions with him I came across the graphs in support of this as also another impact in the year 3101 BCE, that finds mention in Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagavatam in the words of Yudhishthira seeing ‘nimittas’ seven months after Krishna left this world. This makes the traditional date of Mahabharata all the more water-tight.

He also opines that the presumed shift in the position of the binary Alcor- Mizar (Arundhati- Vasishtha) was due to the rattling of the earth by the impact. He cites a proxy for this in the records of Canterbury Monks in 1178 CE. 

  (Link here)

The year of Mahabharata, being pivotal to building up the chronology of the later history of India and inseparably intertwined with the start of Kali Yuga in 3101 BCE that is well established by thousands of inscriptions and continuing to be in use for all religious purposes and by scores of Hindus throughout India, I consider that I am humbly paying back my debt to the Rishis and the Itihasa of Mahabharata by validating the date and getting the date vindicated by science.

May the Paramaatman take this forward to a logical conclusion.

Click HERE  to read the paper. 

Given below the list of 19 scholars who approved my paper. 

I have also re-produced here the reviews by eight scholars who didn’t find merit in the paper. This is to maintain transparency to inform the public the two sides of opinion so that they can come to an informed conclusion on the validity of the traditional date of the Mahabharata war (3136 BCE) Wherever required I am incorporating their suggestions.                                                                                  

Approvals:

I express my sincere thanks to all the 19 scholars who have approved my paper. By their approval they have contributed immensely to the re-establishment of this ancient Itihasa of this land as a non-faltering and true account of the Rishi, Veda Vyasa who had given the world's first accurate eye-witness account of the cosmic impact. 

1.      Gonzalo Linares Matás, University of Oxford

2.      Trevor Palmer, Nottingham Trent University

3.      Aliyu Adamu, Author, NIPES Journal of Science and Technology Research

4.      Дмитрий Ключарев

5.      Erick Pajares G., CEO, Biosphere Group -Think Tank on Sustainable Futures Research

6.      D. S. J. Mylne

7.      Steven Gullberg, University of Oklahoma

8.      Julian West, mythsarehistory.com

9.      Mauro Cavalcanti

10.  Joachim Seifert (whose research is the basis of my paper)

11.  Nathalie Gontier, Universidade de Lisboa, Centro de Filosofia das Ciências, Director AppEEL

12.  Paul Dunbavin, Author, www.third-millennium.co.uk

13.  Raj Bhat, Banaras Hindu University

14.  Prof. Dr. Emin Taner ELMAS, Igdir University

15.  Narayanan V Bhattathiri, Former Senior Research Fellow, International School of Dravidian Linguistics

16.  Vladan Celebonovic, University of Belgrade, Serbia

17.  Manish Pandit, University of Birmingham

18.  Thomas F.King, University of California Riverside

19.   Jhonny Casas, Universidad Central de Venezuela 

Review by Mr. Joachim Seifert

This paper of Mr. Saranathan is excellent and very important to clarify effects and aftermaths of meteor impacts on Earth. As papers of Seifert and Lemke, see refs., part 1 to 8, always outline, is that all meteor impacts on Earth were followed by a substantial descent in global temperatures. The cause of this, as quick hint, is that Earth or the Earth-Moon gravitational system moves, after a meteor hit, out of the x-y-ecliptic, where the gravitational pull is strongest, somewhat into the z-dimension, half above and half below the ecliptic in its orbit around the Sun - a skewed Earth orbit with reduced gravitational pull. This leads to an enlargement of the Earth orbit, longer distances to the Sun and a subsequent drop in global temperatures. We must therefore see a substantial temperature drop after this meteor impact in 3136 BC. Lets consult GISP2 in Greenland, the version of borehole temperatures: Starting out at 3,400 BC, with a borehole temp at -31.30 C, temps increase toward the Piora interval to 3210 BC, to the time of the Andaman meteor impact, to -30.0 C. This first Piora Andaman impact lowered the temp to -30.40 C at 3160 BC. From there on, temps recovered to -30.25 C, when this, now the second impact, at Hastinapura, struck at 3136 BC (excellent time research of the author). This event struck the Moon, with fragments reaching Earth, as described. There is no impact crater on Earth necessary, since the unit Earth-Moon-system went into the colder z-space dimension. The temperature drop starts exactly at impact year 3136 BC from -30.25 C down to -30.37 C in 3100 BC, about a third of the Andaman meteor temp drop. The Piora cold event did not stop here: After a warming 3100-3035 BC, the third meteor struck, the Morasko event in Poland, which lowered global temperatures again and the fourth, the largest impact, prolonged the cold in 2920 BC, the Burckle impact - the cold and dry period until the deepest point at 2800 BC. This Piora strikes and the drought Burckle event wiped out the Harrappan and Jemdet Nasr cultures. Historical observations of this Hastinapura impact event, the location and its exact dating now provides a face to this second Piora impact event, the other three already described in the literature. Very important is the following: The historical observation plus the necessarily commencing temperature drops are just 2 proxies for the impact. All impacts (about 25 in the Holocene) are characterized by a number of other proxies: Flood-drought history, iron oxide- hematite (the iron meteorite losing mass), titan, 15-N, NO2, 14-C, 10-Be, fire history, non-volcanic dust history in polar ice or bore cores, the IntCal13 tree ring calibration analysis and various others. As a rapid and easy glimpse onto IntCal13 for everyone: The meteor/fragments entering the Earth atmosphere, at 2000-3000 C, produce different radioactive substances, 14-C with the longest life for detection, in plant uptake of CO2 through trees. The increased 14-C-content in the air is demonstrated in IntCal13, by sharp descent from peaks. IntCal13 covers tree trunk 14-C on a global scale. Therefore: Print out the respective IntCal13 graph from 2050 -4050 BC and identify the sharp calibration drops, caused by meteor produced 14-C. Here you will observe the Hastinapura 14-C drop, as well as the the three others, the Andaman, Morasko and the ultra-large Burckle drop for the Piora time span. All other proxies for the more that 20 impact events will be demonstrated in future papers. This Hastinapura paper closes one more gap in meteor impact science and we should be grateful to the author having consulted the ancient literature for historical eyewitness reports and also for focussing onto the astronomical side of this important impact event.

 

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Rejections:

Eight reviewers did not approve the paper for publication. Their names are not disclosed, but their comments were shown to me. I am posting them all here. I will be addressing relevant issues raised by them in the comment section of the paper soon, for the benefit of everybody. For instance, the 1^st review questions the feasibility of the calendar date to pinpoint the date of the comet hit on Beta Cancri (Pushya). We maintain a calendar for too long, at least for a known period of 5122 years since Kali Yuga began. I will place on record the feasibility of deriving the exact dates.

Review 1:

“The core idea that the memory of cosmic impact events could have been contained in certain human records or traditions is viable. However, there is no way that the lunar mansions, the star Beta Cancri or specific calendar dates were possible around 3200 BC. The Mahabharata was written at a much later date. If such a cosmic impact had occurred, memories of it may have been preserved in oral tradition and contributed to the Mahabharata narrative at a much later time. Such details could not, however, have been recorded so accurately at the time of the events themselves.

Phrases like 'solar insolation' do not inspire much confidence in the scientific part of the argument.

In order to salvage this idea, it would be good to quote the pertinent passages from the Mahabharata, or at least some key passages, to address the issues identified above and to be much more cautious about the conclusion.”

Review 2:

“The idea that cosmic impacts cause changes in climate as well as in the human history is not a new one, but it has started to take more attention recently. The author does apply this idea, using hindu written sources as ancillary evidence.

However, the paper needs more work in its supporting references. Recent bibliography (e.g. Bobrowsky & Rickman (2007): Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society) as well some of the older works by Masse, will help in the point.

The reference to the lunar meteorite "storm" is well chosen, but this event was dated 800 million years ago. Are there geological evidence of such events in the historical times?

A cross check with the impact database will show that there are no discovered impact craters for that particular period (of course, the relevant impact crater may still be undiscovered). Cross checking with other primary sources of the era, may come up with similar phenomena in other civilizations. These would be a major evidence for the author's hypothesis.

So, at the moment, I cannot recommend the paper for publication, but I would reconsider it if more evidence is provided.”

Review 3:

“This is pseudoscience, commingling religious text with factual history. This is another push by the current Indian government to miseducate the masses.”

Review 4:

“The concept that a swarm of comet debris may have hit the earth about 3200 BC is not new. See for instance:

Baillie, M. 2007. The case for significant numbers of extraterrestrial impacts through the late Holocene. Journal of Quaternary Science, v. 22, pp. 101–109. or other contributions from the Holocene Impact Working Group.

Mahabharata has been often misused by cherry-picking scattered verses in order to create the description of a single catastrophic event, such as an atomic explosion. This letter gives the impression of doing the same because it does not quote the verses precisely. Moreover it is hard to believe that the trajectory of the Moon could have been affected to the extent and in the way reported by the letter.

Moreover, the number of issues raised cannot be adequately argued and supported by references within the number of words allowed by academia letters”

Review 5:

“The paper is very speculative and does not give reference to the original text.

1. It claims dates for Mahabharata in 3100 BC which is too early by conventional standards.

2, It is not clear that a meteor shower that can create enough impact to change EOO would only have such a limited impact on weather - that too in Europe when the event is supposed to have happened in the Arabian sea.

3 The Arabian see itself is not visible from Kurukshetra where the war is said to have happened.

4. References to Harappa are wrong in that they are not from any accepted narrative of the Harappan Civilization and the reference to a website is not reliable.

5. The said descriptions in Mahabharata are vaguely referenced (in the 10th book) and there is not way of reliably verifying the claim.

All in all the paper is simply a speculation based on unreliable claims, and inconsistent with a lot of data and generally accepted timeline of events.”

Review 6:

“This article is almost ready for preprint publication. I would like to privately suggest to the author that they need to mention more Bibliographical references within the first two pages of this article. And cross compare as to why and how specifically may have caused a Cosmic impact described in the Hindu Epic Mahabharata cause the Piora Oscillation. First explaining how and why this applies in hypothetical terms an next how an why the bibliographical references support this a a preliminary theory as well. Once this is done I would recommend for publication in "Academia Letters".”

Review 7:

“I think this is a good and interesting paper, but I here are some little problems I saw:

If you have section headings in the middle it would be less jarring to have one at the beginning and end, too.

I would like to see more pictures, maybe a diagram of the orbits of the objects and changes in axis tilt.

"the ark of noah", not "the noah of ark"

"crater" not "carter"

Several other typos show a need for proofreading, and I recommend a look at the formatting in your bibliography, too.

Review 8:

“The Mahabharata comes (earliest) from Vedic times, which start (earliest) 1500 BC. How to explain the gap of at least 1500 years? This is too much. The idea of such impacts itself is very very speculative, not enough substance. In sum, it is pseudoscience.”

Published my new book “Oral cancer - Astrological Prediction and Remedies”.

Sharing the happy news of the publishing of my new book titled, “Oral Cancer -Astrological Prediction and Remedies” in Kindle.

This e-book is based on my Ph.D thesis analyzing 100 horoscopes of oral cancer cases and more than 70 horoscopes of cancer in general and diseases of the face and the mouth.

This book serves as a guide in medical astrology not just for the astrologers and astrology enthusiasts, but also for those who have no previous knowledge of astrology. This book is the first of its kind in detecting oral cancer in the horoscope. It also offers techniques of predicting different types of cancer, diseases of the mouth and the face including various kinds of eye problems, speech disorders, cleft palate and five types of non-cancerous and pre-cancerous lesions in the mouth. A section on palm lines related to prediction of diseases is added. More importantly the book offers simple astrological remedial measures, the scientific rationale behind them and the methods to derive remedies from the horoscope.

In a few days the paperback edition would be brought out.

 

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