Imagine outskirts of a remote village with a sole bakery. Everyday at sharp 6PM in the evening, there is an automatic switch that powers on a huge neon bulb that calls out the bakery name in bright colors. The turning on of this neon light is accompanied by a typical static electric sound that comes when big old tube lights are trying to power on. The automatic switch that powers on this light, at the same time also opens up the exhaust shafts of the bakery kitchen that send out a familiar aroma of baked breads and biscuits to the surrounding area. The aroma that had probably died out over the day due to wind and dissolution. the warm air let out of the exhaust shafts lets out a ripple of compressed wind that can be minutely felt if one were to pay attention.
This is an event that can alert the human senses - all five of them simultaneously. If one were to stand about a few feet away from this place, at exactly 6PM, his eyes will record the light, ears will hear the sound from the light, nose will sense the smell along with a pseudo taste of the bread on to the tongue along with the skin feeling the warmth of the sudden gush of air.
If we were to consider the physical laws of nature minutely, light that travels fast would be the first to reach the person and it is the eyes that get the hint of the event primarily. Then comes the second fastest signal of sound and ears get activated and acknowledge the event. Then comes the wind to nudge the skin sensation and then come the smell and taste perceptions. Because of these laws of physics sending different signals at different speeds, human beings also evolved to prioritize the senses in the same order - eyes, ears, skin, nose and tongue. Eyes became the highest priority input of signals to the brain.
For the brain to process the event, hence, it relies primarily on that it gets from the eyes. If there is a signal coming from the eye, the rest of the signals of the event only get associated to have been tied to this primary signal and is processed accordingly. If there is any event where we don't see anything and sound becomes the primary signal, the other senses of skin, nose and tongue become the accessory events if present and the brain still looks for a visual confirmation. Example if you hear an unexpected sound while asleep and you wake up suddenly from it, your brain looks out for a signal from the eyes for making the connection and doesn't try to grab the signals from skin or nose or tongue. Similarly, if you suddenly smell an aroma, your brain again looks for the source of the smell and reinforcement from the eyes. Eyes have become the primary sense organ, followed by ears, skin, nose and tongue, most probably in that very order.
Not all events instigate all the five senses. Sometimes it is just a powering on of a normal bulb, activating eyes and no other sense organ. Sometimes it is eyes and ears and no other senses. Occasionally more than these two senses and rarely all the five. However, the brain in itself cannot guess if an event will have only one sense activated or multiple.
Because of this inherent need to ensure one event with all its associated sensory signals, there is a very short duration of time before which the brain doesn't actually start connecting the signals, but only receive them into the short term memory. The time slot is however very very small and hence humankind took ages to connect thunder and lightning to have the same event as the source.
First the signals get into the short term memory region of the brain where they are recognized as coming from a particular sense, stored and prioritized, waited a minuscule amount of time for reinforcement from other senses and then processed and recorded in the long term memory. This way of processing the external signals have been the way we are since eons. Right from the days of early homo sapiens this is how the brain has evolved to process events from the world.
While this order of stimulation of senses, short term memory, long term memory is the way how we interact with the world around us, human being do develop minor glitches in the process. Just like our eyes gaze at blank region for a second while seeing nothing, just like we suddenly start acknowledging the sound of a particular insect that has always been chirping but we unwittingly ignored the sound, etc. Likewise unwittingly we sometimes can delay the short term memory data movement to long term memory commit. The short term memory region is only an event collection region and the order doesn't matter. in other words, the perception of the order of events or linear time as we call it, begins only in the long term memory region. Hence, we can successfully acknowledge that the light, sound, smell and warmth from the bakery in our earlier example are in fact originating from the same place.
Once the stimulus of events is read from the short term memory, it is processed and signal is sent back to discard it to make room for newer signals. Very rarely, the processing doesn't happen in the long term region. The data is read from the short term memory, but just like the eyes that gaze at something but fail to register the visual data, the processing part of the brain sometimes holds unprocessed data and doesn't know what it is for. The short term memory is not cleared yet because the main processing region did not acknowledge the data reception. In the micro seconds of time, the signals from the short term memory is read again, this time ready to process it. However, it already has the exact same data unprocessed from before which is not tied to any time.
This gives rise to a scenario where brain has to make sense of the extra copy of data that is not time bound. It sees exactly as something already seen but doesn't know when. It doesn't feel like the same signal that originated from the event that it is now processing because this new data is fresh and it can continue to associate with events that continue to happen. It is the older copy of the signals that it failed to process earlier and that which doesn't correspond to the current timing of the events but looks exactly the same that it has to make sense of and it cannot. This is called Déjà vu.
Déjà vu
How to miss a train for no reason
A short story that I wrote here directly on Whatsapp. Purely imaginary, of course; just wanted to try writing in English and that too a short one - so an attempt. All characters and event references are imaginary, any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual firms, is purely coincidental.
How to miss a train for no reason
-Dilip Bhatt
Karen Blixen once said, "All sorrow can be borne if you put them into a story".
A vacation during high school is pretty different than all the vacations before. With no expectations of enjoyment, but just to while away the time, I accompanied my cousin Rajesh to Byndoor in the train. In fact, if I knew he was going to his aunty's town, maybe I never would have planned to visit his home and instead would have gone to another cousin's place or maybe stayed home during the holidays. It was the October vacation. But the train journey was a rare pleasure and just two of us guys of 12-14 yrs of age going independently made it feel like an adventure. We almost never slept the whole journey and we goofed around and stared relentlessly outside the windows watching the natural splendor, we never could see in our Bangalore. The entire climate was moist, making the landscape more vivid with the saturated colors of the contrast between the red mud and the green wet grass.
We traveled light with just a week's stay in mind. He had promised me a calm and serene uncle's home. The way to their home itself was a pleasure. I, being that young, had never met those relatives, but neither I nor my family was new to them. They welcomed me with a warm smile and a personal touch which I am yet to experience from anyone else in my 40 yrs of life. It was as if I was known to them and I could make myself at home in their home.
What I didn't know at all was about Namitha, their daughter. I was never big on knowing all the relatives anyway. So, when it so happened that by the time we reached their home by 11AM and I was just blending in, she came out of the showers, her hairs still all wet, least expecting to see a stranger (me) who had awkwardly dropped his jaws at her very sight. Almost in a comic reversal of the movie clip, she went back inside and I guess she asked her mother about who I was. 'Ye, joisru maga alene..' was all I could hear. Rajesh was already grinning at me and jumping his eyebrows. I almost said shut up, but did not. He hadn't uttered a word for me to say that.
We freshened up and started enjoying delicacies that I could never forget. Kotte kadubu, tondekayi palya anna, what not. Maybe they felt more tasteful to Rajesh because his aunt prepared it and they felt more tasteful to me because Namitha served it to me? While sitting and chatting, she came right next to me and sat, which... had never happened to me earlier. It was, for some reason, an obvious confusion to me. Either she also liked me or maybe I was reading a lot into it.
But the confusion cleared off the last day when I was about to leave. The 5-6 days had passed like minutes but even though it is not easy to re-live and retell about every moment, each one of those moments had unknowingly brought us closer. I even had the audacity to pluck a flower from their own garden that they had grown and give it to her the last day when we were about to leave. Imagine the guts. Maybe that is when my confusion dissolved when she had tears in her eyes and asked when we would meet again. Maybe the first time I had a knot in my throat too, preventing me to reply back to her. I had no clue when we could meet like this again. Those were not the days of the internet or smartphones. Obviously, both lacked the letter writing skills since we never wrote letters.
But, this was not the end.
Though I felt it was just a high school crush that must have faded away and we never met each other quite often (me not being a party-going guy - I sincerely skipped all family events and functions). Finished my degree, joined a company, and life went on. I was in US when I heard from my parents it was her marriage. The fact that I remember that, it was during June 2005, still hurts me. Why would I remember that timeframe of her marriage if nothing ever that happened between us? But hey, she was just a couple of years younger to me, this was bound to happen, she being a girl. I was dull for a few days but got myself together pretty soon.
But life surprises you in ways you never expect. After I came back and was searching for a match for myself, she happened to have come to Mandya, my home, obviously with her husband and all. I was emotionally intact and didn't feel any pull by then. They were visiting surroundings of Mandya and I was back from US searching for the match. Dad, being the dad, had created a folder full of profiles, about 20 of them that I was supposed to go through. As I went through, she sat beside me and my parents on that early morning going through them. I flipped through all of the twenty profiles and after a few minutes of deliberation, decided to return them all. None of them rang a bell in my heart. Dad got up and started preparing postages to send back the profiles as it is not fair to retain profiles of girls.
As my parents walked away, and I thought of the next steps, what next, matrimony sites - where can I find the one that my heart desires? Suddenly she put her hand on mine, held it tightly. I looked up to her to see the same wet eyes that I had seen long back. She said, 'let me go'. I suddenly understood what I was looking for. I also understood that she wasn't holding my hand, but I was holding on to her memories and thoughts. It was her, that my heart always subconsciously built up as my ideal match. And it was then that I realized I have missed it big time! I said, 'I didn't know it was going to be this hard'. She handed me a rose that she was holding since she came and sat there and said, 'It is just a flower. you can't expect to hold it forever'. I had the same knot in my throat, a deep and sharp sadness covered with velvet cloth. Nobody can see it from outside but the very loss of what could have been the best of the best, messed me up. She got up as her husband came down smiling and it was almost time that they started their trip and away they went off.
What could have been a great romantic novel, turned into a short story that has to be lived for the rest of the life. Now she is just a DP on Whatsapp that my mind makes me see once in a while. Maybe she does that too? Maybe. "All sorrow can be borne if you put them into a story". But a lot of buds don't even flower and get buried back in the soil under the same plant.
If I see two young people enjoying each other's company, but not yet ready to commit, I pray and wish they make that choice soon. Always better to board the train and take the journey together than repent missing the point altogether. If you miss the train, the entire journey will be different.
How to miss a train for no reason
-Dilip Bhatt
Karen Blixen once said, "All sorrow can be borne if you put them into a story".
A vacation during high school is pretty different than all the vacations before. With no expectations of enjoyment, but just to while away the time, I accompanied my cousin Rajesh to Byndoor in the train. In fact, if I knew he was going to his aunty's town, maybe I never would have planned to visit his home and instead would have gone to another cousin's place or maybe stayed home during the holidays. It was the October vacation. But the train journey was a rare pleasure and just two of us guys of 12-14 yrs of age going independently made it feel like an adventure. We almost never slept the whole journey and we goofed around and stared relentlessly outside the windows watching the natural splendor, we never could see in our Bangalore. The entire climate was moist, making the landscape more vivid with the saturated colors of the contrast between the red mud and the green wet grass.
We traveled light with just a week's stay in mind. He had promised me a calm and serene uncle's home. The way to their home itself was a pleasure. I, being that young, had never met those relatives, but neither I nor my family was new to them. They welcomed me with a warm smile and a personal touch which I am yet to experience from anyone else in my 40 yrs of life. It was as if I was known to them and I could make myself at home in their home.
What I didn't know at all was about Namitha, their daughter. I was never big on knowing all the relatives anyway. So, when it so happened that by the time we reached their home by 11AM and I was just blending in, she came out of the showers, her hairs still all wet, least expecting to see a stranger (me) who had awkwardly dropped his jaws at her very sight. Almost in a comic reversal of the movie clip, she went back inside and I guess she asked her mother about who I was. 'Ye, joisru maga alene..' was all I could hear. Rajesh was already grinning at me and jumping his eyebrows. I almost said shut up, but did not. He hadn't uttered a word for me to say that.
We freshened up and started enjoying delicacies that I could never forget. Kotte kadubu, tondekayi palya anna, what not. Maybe they felt more tasteful to Rajesh because his aunt prepared it and they felt more tasteful to me because Namitha served it to me? While sitting and chatting, she came right next to me and sat, which... had never happened to me earlier. It was, for some reason, an obvious confusion to me. Either she also liked me or maybe I was reading a lot into it.
But the confusion cleared off the last day when I was about to leave. The 5-6 days had passed like minutes but even though it is not easy to re-live and retell about every moment, each one of those moments had unknowingly brought us closer. I even had the audacity to pluck a flower from their own garden that they had grown and give it to her the last day when we were about to leave. Imagine the guts. Maybe that is when my confusion dissolved when she had tears in her eyes and asked when we would meet again. Maybe the first time I had a knot in my throat too, preventing me to reply back to her. I had no clue when we could meet like this again. Those were not the days of the internet or smartphones. Obviously, both lacked the letter writing skills since we never wrote letters.
But, this was not the end.
Though I felt it was just a high school crush that must have faded away and we never met each other quite often (me not being a party-going guy - I sincerely skipped all family events and functions). Finished my degree, joined a company, and life went on. I was in US when I heard from my parents it was her marriage. The fact that I remember that, it was during June 2005, still hurts me. Why would I remember that timeframe of her marriage if nothing ever that happened between us? But hey, she was just a couple of years younger to me, this was bound to happen, she being a girl. I was dull for a few days but got myself together pretty soon.
But life surprises you in ways you never expect. After I came back and was searching for a match for myself, she happened to have come to Mandya, my home, obviously with her husband and all. I was emotionally intact and didn't feel any pull by then. They were visiting surroundings of Mandya and I was back from US searching for the match. Dad, being the dad, had created a folder full of profiles, about 20 of them that I was supposed to go through. As I went through, she sat beside me and my parents on that early morning going through them. I flipped through all of the twenty profiles and after a few minutes of deliberation, decided to return them all. None of them rang a bell in my heart. Dad got up and started preparing postages to send back the profiles as it is not fair to retain profiles of girls.
As my parents walked away, and I thought of the next steps, what next, matrimony sites - where can I find the one that my heart desires? Suddenly she put her hand on mine, held it tightly. I looked up to her to see the same wet eyes that I had seen long back. She said, 'let me go'. I suddenly understood what I was looking for. I also understood that she wasn't holding my hand, but I was holding on to her memories and thoughts. It was her, that my heart always subconsciously built up as my ideal match. And it was then that I realized I have missed it big time! I said, 'I didn't know it was going to be this hard'. She handed me a rose that she was holding since she came and sat there and said, 'It is just a flower. you can't expect to hold it forever'. I had the same knot in my throat, a deep and sharp sadness covered with velvet cloth. Nobody can see it from outside but the very loss of what could have been the best of the best, messed me up. She got up as her husband came down smiling and it was almost time that they started their trip and away they went off.
What could have been a great romantic novel, turned into a short story that has to be lived for the rest of the life. Now she is just a DP on Whatsapp that my mind makes me see once in a while. Maybe she does that too? Maybe. "All sorrow can be borne if you put them into a story". But a lot of buds don't even flower and get buried back in the soil under the same plant.
If I see two young people enjoying each other's company, but not yet ready to commit, I pray and wish they make that choice soon. Always better to board the train and take the journey together than repent missing the point altogether. If you miss the train, the entire journey will be different.
Is my story too complex for my readers?
"Since I was a child, I’ve always loved a good story. I believed that stories helped us to ennoble ourselves to fix what was broken in us, and to help us become the people we dreamed of being. Lies that told a deeper truth."
- Dr. Robert Ford in Westworld TV Series
There are stories that are told very simply and in a straight forward manner and then there are stories that are told in a manner that seem highly complex and not easy to understand. Many such movies and TV series too. Why are the complex ones told the way they are done?
Behind every story the writer wants to convey a message. He could choose to do it in a simple but effective manner or he may opt to do it in a more creative but complex way. The premise of the story may be elaborate or plain, but both a simple and complex story can be told either in a simple or a complex way.
Stories like The Hare and The Tortoise, a simple premise, told in a simple straight forward way. You can easily understand the story in one read and is told in such simple way that you know what the story teller wanted to tell his reader.
Stories like Alice in Wonderland, a complex premise, but told in a simple straight forward way. The story has multiple layers and but is fairly easy to follow and is fun. Once you are through it, you know what the author wanted to say.
Then there are stories that have simple premise like Memento, told in a manner that seems not easy to follow. Once you probably understand it, retrospectively, the premise seems very simple. Protagonist, a short term memory loss patient being betrayed and used by his friend but the protagonist finally finds out and handles it. Another example is a movie 'About Time'. The protagonist can time travel and relive his life over and over again till he gets exactly what he wants. In both of these cases, it is not easy to understand that Memento is not about revenge, but about the philosophical quest of remembering who we are and what constitutes us other than our own memory; that About Time is not about a perfect girlfriend and time travel but about a perfect father and how reliving the life doesn't matter. Stories like Dune, H2G2, Annihilation, and movies like Arrival, Inception, Prestige, Westworld TV Series, etc. have told stories in a very different way which a regular viewer of TV series like Saath Nibhaana Saathiya, Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai and the like would never probably move out of the latter to even taste the other dishes.
Still, however complex a plot is, however hard it is made to understand with multiple untold timelines, surprise twists, etc., a complex story still reaches to a wide range of readers and viewers. The only plausible reason is, no reader/viewer is as dumb as some story tellers assume them to be. Some story tellers start telling the story as if they have a very complex plot and huge range of characters and they repeat scenarios and plot locus of their story to 'ensure' the reader gets it.
No. Stop doing that as a writer. Now.
Respect the intellect of your readers. Assume that 99% of the readers can guess what your twist, climax and moral of the story is, within a few pages into it. Then, make it challenging to understand. Let them not immediately find out if they are in a dream layer or reality; let them not immediately understand why Kattappa killed the protagonist; let them question why Sita accused Lakshman of thinking illicit of her; challenge them to reason why Krishna married thousands of girls except Radha. At the same time have multiple equally plausible answers to each of these open ended questions.
Don't repeat yourself (like I'm doing right now) and let there be no cliché in your story. Challenge the intellect of a reader. Accept that they are not dumb. Make your intent and message of the story complex to understand but keep the premise simple. Keep open a few questions for readers to ponder over the rationale. You've got a winner story.
View of Ocean While En Route in the River
(A)
Yesterday was a busy day for me. As soon as I heard of an RT-eye activist filing a case against Mr. Ram Seth Baloney (hereafter Ram-jay for convenience), one of our most senior and honorable member of constitutional body of Janasthan, I immediately got to work. Even though Mr Ram-jay himself is a great lawyer, he encourages junior lawyers like us by letting us help him and grow.
The news ran thus -
"Mr Ram-jay created a fresh controversy when he said Lord Ram, who is the protagonist in the epic in 'Ramayana', was a 'bad husband'."
"Ram was a bad husband. I don't like him at all. Just because some fisherman said something, he sent that poor woman (Sita) to vanvaas (exile)," Ram-jay was quoted as saying on Thursday.
"It's my understanding to mythology. I have serious doubts whether Ram in that sense is a historical figure," he said.
The court has registered the case and has posted the matter for next Saturday. I telephoned Mr Ram-jay for getting the first hand information. I being a lawyer and psychiatrist, I immediately saw what was going on and asked a few questions that can help me prepare our side of story for the court hearing.
Me: Hello, Mr Ram-jay.
Mr Ram-jay: Hello, I was about to give you a call myself.
Me: I have heard about the developments and wanted to ask you a couple of questions myself before I go and fight out for the cause of truth.
Mr Ram-jay: Please ask.
Me: Sir, do you believe in bhoot - pret... That, a dead person may return as a ghost and start troubling people?
Mr Ram-jay: What!?? NO, I don't believe in such non-sense.
[If the answer were to be an 'yes', I would have gone for a plea based on psychological instability grounds. But I had guessed this answer of 'no' was coming.]
Me: Sir, do you believe that in bhoot - pret (ghosts), there can be good ones and bad ones? Ones that can help people and the ones that always give trouble?
Mr Ram-jay: What sort of irrelevant question is that!? I don't even believe that there can be any ghosts at all! Then where does the question of good or bad ones come from?
Me: Thank you Mr Ram-jay. That was just the answer I was looking for. I am now prepared with all the answers I need for the hearing.
(B)
That is the conviction that a strong belief carries. Psychologically, if a mind cannot accept the existence of a certain thing, it cannot contemplate the attributes associated with it. When Mr Ram-jay cannot accept the notion of existence of ghosts, there is no meaning to the follow up question on the ghost attributes like good ones or bad ones.
Same holds good in the case of Ram. If his mind strongly accepted the fact that Ram was not even a historical figure, the comments on whether he was a bad son, bad husband or bad father does not make sense.
But in this case, since Mr Ram-jay does indeed hold on to judging the attributes of Ram, he is implicitly accepting the existence of Ram.
(C)
But he does say that he has serious doubts whether Ram is a historical figure. Note the words - serious doubts - not a conviction. Deep down, his subconscious mind does believe the existence of Ram and that is implicitly proven by his remarks on the attributes of Ram. The serious doubts of His very existence then comes from what is known in psychiatry 'a Willfully Condemned Belief Syndrome'. Well, Mr Ram-jay is almost 90, what else can you expect?
(D)
To explain the scenario further, take the cases of literature, where 'A Willful Suppression of Disbelief' is something that is needed to savour the very literature. Without this preconditioning of mind, one cannot read most of the literature.
i. Sherlock Holmes - You cannot contemplate on whether needle-indulgence was good for him or bad, unless your mind willfully suppresses the disbelief of Sherlock Holmes' non-existence. You got to start the book with the preconditioning of agreeing to what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author has to say.
ii. Harry Potter - You cannot debate if there was a better and faster way to subdue you-know-who, if you do not believe magic is a possible science that can be taught at universities.
iii. Same holds good for other literary cases, listed but not limited to, Calvin and Hobbes, Kane and Abel, what-not.
(E)
Indian literary science (Rasa shastra) extends this basic building block of 'willful suppression of disbelief' into what is known as 'bhava' and 'alankara'. 'Bhava' and 'Alankara' are the ingredients of a Kavya/work that can generate what is known to be 'Sthayi Bhava'. Stayi Bhava is a feeling that 'stays' post exposure to the literary ingredients 'Bhava' and 'alankara' and an optimal combination of them.
When you watch a movie and come out, a good movie is supposed to leave an impression behind, in your mind that makes a few of the emotions stay back in the mind for a while. When you watch Schindler cry feeling he could have done more (Schindler's List), or when you watch Andy Dufresne prove that there always is a way out (The Shawshank Redemption), or when just one of the 12 jurors can influence the rest of the 11 to do that which is the right thing to do (12 Angry Men) and come out of the theater, something, some part of emotion, continues to cling in your mind.
That is 'Sthayi Bhava'. An organized ingredient combination of alankara with 8 sthira bhava and 33 asthira bhava can bring in the desired 'Sthayi Bhava' in the people listening or watching or reading the poem/movie/literature.
An intensive series of combination of such (alankara and bhava), brings in a series of Sthayi bhava that can permanently alter the mind and its response to events. That is called 'Rasa' or aesthetic expression in the Kavya (Kavya is a super-set of nataka, gadya, nrutya, sangeeta, chitra, etc). Each of the Kavya variety is a medium that enables the creator/author to equip his creation with Rasa, which when taken with 'a willful suppression of disbelief' can bring in a permanent mood change in a reader/audience that will help him implicitly know the ideal way to lead his life as well as benefit the society be stable with a group of such cultured and learned people.
(F)
But unless you have watched the movies I quoted, you will not be able to relate. If you have watched it, your mind is already influenced and transformed into a state that cannot pass irrelevant comments on the movie or its characters thereof.
But, if you have not actually watched the movie but have only heard a part of the story, you still can say 'Andy Dufresne was a convicted felon and he escaping the Shawshank and being portrayed as hero by the director is WRONG'.
This capacity of brain to willfully condemn something of which we have incomplete knowledge is a syndrome that may creep in as the brain ages with continued confusion, called 'Willfully Condemned Belief Syndrome'.
The root cause of this syndrome can be directly traced back to a mind that is not fully cultured because of incomplete knowledge and has grown old not being able to accept or reject the existence of a notion.
(G)
Since Mr Ram-jay clearly demonstrates this confusion of his about the existence of Ram-ji, and having aged with that confusion that has not been shaped into a strong belief either this way or that, with a full-fledged knowledge of Ramayan, I here by request Rt-eye representatives to take back the case filed against Mr Ram.
When he is talking about not believing Ram of being a good husband, who knows, he might be referring to himself!
(H)
Valmiki giri sambhuta Rama sagara gamini
Punatu bhuvanam punya Ramayana Mahanadi ||
The magnificent river (mahanadi) of Ramayana originates at the peak (giri) of Valmiki consciousness and cleansing the earth, flows and becomes one with the ocean (sagara) of Rama.
Unless the mind starts flowing with the river accepting the bhava and alankara proposed by the momentum from the peak, it may not enlighten itself with the darshana (vision) of the Rama (ocean). And anything you say, you imagine, about the charita (characteristics) of the Rama (ocean) while en-route, is bound to get overwhelmed and dissolved when you actually reach the ocean and see for yourself.
Did Little Johny Eat Sugar?
I was overhearing the rhymes 'Johny Johny' while my son was listening to it and wondered if anyone ever really figure out whether Johny had eaten the sugar or not. The rhymes ends with a 'ha ha ha' and does not really tell you what the 'papa' found out in his mouth. So, I guess nobody other than Johny and his papa will ever find that out.
I started wondering if any Hindu Puranas have instances like this, where someone has eaten/drank something but you never know if they really did. Of course! Not just one, there seem to be quite a few stories that never answer such question. Ambiguity prevails till the end of the story, if that someone really eat/drank something.
1) Mahashiva drinking poison that rose from the ocean churning. Since it got stopped in his throat itself, we cannot be really sure if we can call it drinking.
2) Rahu drinking Amruta and getting his head severed just in time to cut him into two yet live after that. Cutting heads of other Gods and demi Gods won't kill them or separate them out forever. But it did for Rahu; to form two separate entities Rahu and Ketu. But they did not die either. So, we will probably never logically conclude if they really drank it or not.
3) Bheema during the Kurukshetra war, slays Duhshaasana and breaks open his ribs as the blood oozes out. Takes the blood in his hands and drinks it. He starts explaining the taste of the blood and the sweetness of the revenge to exceed the taste of his mother's milk or anything he has ever drank. He 'informes' his brother Yudhistira later that he has completed his vow of slaying Duhshaasana and drinking his blood (Karna Parva: Chapter 83). Many people seeing the scene dropped unconscious while many others ran for life seeing the inhumanity. But after the war and past many years, later when Kunti, Vidura, Dhritarastra and Gandhaari decide to go to vaanaprasta (retirement into forest life), during that time, Gandhaari asks Bheema if he had actually drank her son's blood. Bheema clearly says 'No' and that he only took the blood almost near his mouth (Ashramavasika parva. Ch.24). Both, saying he did drink the blood and that he did not, finally makes it an 'unknown'. Only Bheema would know if he did or not.
4) Krishna drinking poisonous breast milk of Putana. Only Krishna or Putana would know. Not even Kamsa could know leave alone kamsa's like us (kamsa = arc > incomplete. krutsnaa = full circle > complete). Apart from this instance there may be a few others too.
5) But the most similar one is that of Krishna eating mud and Yashomayya trying to look inside him. It is said she saw the entire Universe within, but it does not say if Yashomayya saw if mud was in Krishna's mouth or not.
Instead of tring to find answers, we should just enjoy the question that will never have an answer. I am trying to teach this Sanskrit rhyme that I composed to my son which can be sung in the same tune that of Johny Johny Yes Papa. I do not vouch for the correctness in the grammar, but hey, they are kids' rhymes and can tolerate minor grammatical mistakes.
ಕೃಷ್ಣ ಕೃಷ್ಣ
ಕಾ ಮಾತಾ
ಭುಂಕ್ತ್ವಾ ಮೃತ್ಸ್ನಾ
ನ ಮಾತಾ
ವದತಿಯಸತ್ಯಂ
ನ ಮಾತಾ
ಕಿಂ ತೇ ಅಂತಃ
ಃ ಃ ಃ
(Ha Ha Ha / ಭೂರ್ಭುವಃ ಸುವಃ)
कृष्ण कृष्ण
का माता
भुंक्त्वा मृत्स्ना
न माता
वदतियसत्यं
न माता
किं ते अंतः
ः ः ः
(Ha Ha Ha / भूर्भुवः सुवः)
 | |
| Krishna Showing the Universe [by Pieter W. (c) Bear Cub Books] |
Swastikah
The traditional decorative drawings are known by various names in different regions of India - rangoli/rangavalli/kolam/kolangal/madanae/chowkpurna/alpana/aripana/chowk, etc.
The optimistic ideal of a newer and better day is represented by these drawings. It represents freshness and celebration of the upcoming better time. This representation of celebration is seen in front of the home of every Hindu family, in front of puja mandir and also in front of celebrated luncheon table. The tradition is still practiced across India.
One of the most common symbol used for this is the Swastikah. The Swastikah symbol represents the same optimistic brighter future view. The Swastikah symbol is the best evident example of how strongly the people of India believe in the optimistic view of life. If we see how old the symbol is and it's strength to remain in use even in today's times shows how the Swastikah symbol has blended into the cultural heritage of India.
Swastikah is a Sanskrit word which etymologically traces to 3 root words - 'su', 'asti' and 'kah' - conjoining (samprukti) to form the 'v'-summation word - Swastikah. 'su' dhatu/root indicates 'good'. 'asti' root indicates 'is'. 'kah' root indicates '[that] which'. Together implying a sense of 'good is [that] which [prevails]'. The implications of [that] and [prevails] form the Nirukta (implied) part of vyutpatti (etymology) vyaakarana (grammar) that per rules, emerge implicitly. Hence the meaning cannot be taken crudely as 'which is good', but 'good is that which prevails'. Translations of root meanings of Sanskrit words to English may not look straight forward, but without the exact implication known, the crude translations would mislead one and steer the meaning of the word or phrase or sentence to deem it meaningless or improper if not at least incomplete.
The Swastikah symbol has been found in Indus valley civilization 'seals'. It is found in the old Sanskrit texts and literature that this symbol formed a 'royal go ahead' marking. Majesties have been using this seal of Swastikah to give a go ahead and bless a start of a good work. These 'seals' from Harappa have been c-14 dated (carbon dated) to as old as 3800 BC. This is the oldest available evidence of existence of the symbol in the Indian subcontinent region. Shatapatha Brahmana of Shukla Yajurveda and Prapathaka #3 of Yajussamhita (Taittiriiya) lists the different varieties of patterns that need to be followed while 'placing' the ishtikaa (ittige or bricks) while performing an isti (kamya yaaga - ritual with a desire). One of the pattern mentioned there is of a 5 layered Swastikah. These texts as Hindus know are newer when compared to texts like Krishna Yajurveda and Rg veda. Shukla Yajussamhita was envisioned by Rshi Yagnyavalkya to propose a doctrine in a different form than the then existing Krishna Yajurveda. So, here when it mentions the Swastikah pattern, it does so, not elaborately explaining the pattern - implying, the Swastikah was already a generally known pattern. So the Swastikah pattern must be older than the Yajussamhita scripts too!
Let us try to know the origins of this shape. See the pattern of the below image. THAT is the origin of the shape.
Now, getting into the details of it. Swastikah shape is the image as seen on 4 solar time-coordinates (sankramana - makara, mesha, karka, tula) with the pole star Dhruva at the center. The alpha (Kratu) and beta (Pulaha) stars of Saptarshi extend a isometric apparent line that points always to Dhruva. Over a period of 1 solar year, if one were to take 4 pictures of Saptarshi Mandala (Big Dipper constellation) on the solar transitions to the mentioned constellations and draw the apparent connecting points to all 7 stars and a line to extend it and meet the Pole Star (Dhruva), and place the images 'side by side' (no need to rotate the images), you will see the attached pattern which resembles the ancient Swastikah marking.
This Swastikah sign, if you keep drawing year after year, due to progression of equinoxes (ayana), the symbol would keep rotating very slowly (as slow as apparent equinox movement year after year). So, the image of the 4-collated-picture of this year will look exactly identical next year, but would seem to have rotated a little (54" a year). It takes 400 years for the image itself to rotate one time and came back to the exact position of the first image you took. 360 degrees has 21600 minutes and 400 times 54" would equal to that.
If you measure the celestial degrees between Pulaha and Dhruva it would be 27 degrees which forms the arm of the Swastikah symbol. Now, while alpha and beta and extended straight line point to Polaris, the gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta and eta forms an arc and the extension of that arc points to one of the 27 stars of Hindu nakshatra cycle. It is ideal to find the star that the arc points to during winter solstice (makara sankranti) early morning. The arc would point to a star in the east and you can see Pegasi star - Uttarabhadra currently. Over the few years no matter which day or night you are experimenting, as long as you can extend the arc to a star on zodiac belt (winter solstice mornings and summer solstice evenings, etc), it will continue to point to Uttarabhaadra star. This arc also does a 360 degree rotation pointing to different stars. This cycle takes 2700 years, almost 100 years directly pointing to one star. So, the one rotation of Swastikah has two time dimensions - 'arm' rotating at the rate of 400 years for 360 degrees and a 100 year cycle per star making 2700 years for the 'arc' to point directly to each of the star in the zodiac belt. It takes 6.75 rotations of Swastikah arm for the arc to be able to directly point to one of the 27 stars. So, this 6.75 rotations or 2700 years cycle is called a rshi-yuga.
Each of the 100 years - shatamaana is named after the star it points to. That way, the current shatamaana could be called Uttaraabhaadra shatamaana. This time calendar is called saptarshi calendar or rshi-yuga panchanga.
Swastikah has been the index of Saptarshi panchanga for ages. Bhaagavata purana calculates the 29th rshi yuga to be the time of the start of story - 78300 years. Dating the narration at 5200 years, 83500 years ago. Regardless if how the 29th cycle was arrived at, it at least points to the fact that if the cycle was indeed kicked off 83500 years ago, the concept of Swastikah is also that old.
The worst case scenario of this tracking being an imagination, the symbol is at least 6000 years old, given this narration 5200 years ago, Harappan seal of 3800 BC (6000+ years ago) and it's knowledge in earlier scripts of Yajur and Rg veda.
The time cycle repeats and treats every deviation of society and retains the goodness as if nothing has happened, year after year, day after day, with a fresh awakening on a beautiful sunny day with a Swastikah Rangavalli welcoming the goodness that prevails.
The optimistic ideal of a newer and better day is represented by these drawings. It represents freshness and celebration of the upcoming better time. This representation of celebration is seen in front of the home of every Hindu family, in front of puja mandir and also in front of celebrated luncheon table. The tradition is still practiced across India.
One of the most common symbol used for this is the Swastikah. The Swastikah symbol represents the same optimistic brighter future view. The Swastikah symbol is the best evident example of how strongly the people of India believe in the optimistic view of life. If we see how old the symbol is and it's strength to remain in use even in today's times shows how the Swastikah symbol has blended into the cultural heritage of India.
Swastikah is a Sanskrit word which etymologically traces to 3 root words - 'su', 'asti' and 'kah' - conjoining (samprukti) to form the 'v'-summation word - Swastikah. 'su' dhatu/root indicates 'good'. 'asti' root indicates 'is'. 'kah' root indicates '[that] which'. Together implying a sense of 'good is [that] which [prevails]'. The implications of [that] and [prevails] form the Nirukta (implied) part of vyutpatti (etymology) vyaakarana (grammar) that per rules, emerge implicitly. Hence the meaning cannot be taken crudely as 'which is good', but 'good is that which prevails'. Translations of root meanings of Sanskrit words to English may not look straight forward, but without the exact implication known, the crude translations would mislead one and steer the meaning of the word or phrase or sentence to deem it meaningless or improper if not at least incomplete.
The Swastikah symbol has been found in Indus valley civilization 'seals'. It is found in the old Sanskrit texts and literature that this symbol formed a 'royal go ahead' marking. Majesties have been using this seal of Swastikah to give a go ahead and bless a start of a good work. These 'seals' from Harappa have been c-14 dated (carbon dated) to as old as 3800 BC. This is the oldest available evidence of existence of the symbol in the Indian subcontinent region. Shatapatha Brahmana of Shukla Yajurveda and Prapathaka #3 of Yajussamhita (Taittiriiya) lists the different varieties of patterns that need to be followed while 'placing' the ishtikaa (ittige or bricks) while performing an isti (kamya yaaga - ritual with a desire). One of the pattern mentioned there is of a 5 layered Swastikah. These texts as Hindus know are newer when compared to texts like Krishna Yajurveda and Rg veda. Shukla Yajussamhita was envisioned by Rshi Yagnyavalkya to propose a doctrine in a different form than the then existing Krishna Yajurveda. So, here when it mentions the Swastikah pattern, it does so, not elaborately explaining the pattern - implying, the Swastikah was already a generally known pattern. So the Swastikah pattern must be older than the Yajussamhita scripts too!
Let us try to know the origins of this shape. See the pattern of the below image. THAT is the origin of the shape.
Now, getting into the details of it. Swastikah shape is the image as seen on 4 solar time-coordinates (sankramana - makara, mesha, karka, tula) with the pole star Dhruva at the center. The alpha (Kratu) and beta (Pulaha) stars of Saptarshi extend a isometric apparent line that points always to Dhruva. Over a period of 1 solar year, if one were to take 4 pictures of Saptarshi Mandala (Big Dipper constellation) on the solar transitions to the mentioned constellations and draw the apparent connecting points to all 7 stars and a line to extend it and meet the Pole Star (Dhruva), and place the images 'side by side' (no need to rotate the images), you will see the attached pattern which resembles the ancient Swastikah marking.
This Swastikah sign, if you keep drawing year after year, due to progression of equinoxes (ayana), the symbol would keep rotating very slowly (as slow as apparent equinox movement year after year). So, the image of the 4-collated-picture of this year will look exactly identical next year, but would seem to have rotated a little (54" a year). It takes 400 years for the image itself to rotate one time and came back to the exact position of the first image you took. 360 degrees has 21600 minutes and 400 times 54" would equal to that.
If you measure the celestial degrees between Pulaha and Dhruva it would be 27 degrees which forms the arm of the Swastikah symbol. Now, while alpha and beta and extended straight line point to Polaris, the gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta and eta forms an arc and the extension of that arc points to one of the 27 stars of Hindu nakshatra cycle. It is ideal to find the star that the arc points to during winter solstice (makara sankranti) early morning. The arc would point to a star in the east and you can see Pegasi star - Uttarabhadra currently. Over the few years no matter which day or night you are experimenting, as long as you can extend the arc to a star on zodiac belt (winter solstice mornings and summer solstice evenings, etc), it will continue to point to Uttarabhaadra star. This arc also does a 360 degree rotation pointing to different stars. This cycle takes 2700 years, almost 100 years directly pointing to one star. So, the one rotation of Swastikah has two time dimensions - 'arm' rotating at the rate of 400 years for 360 degrees and a 100 year cycle per star making 2700 years for the 'arc' to point directly to each of the star in the zodiac belt. It takes 6.75 rotations of Swastikah arm for the arc to be able to directly point to one of the 27 stars. So, this 6.75 rotations or 2700 years cycle is called a rshi-yuga.
Each of the 100 years - shatamaana is named after the star it points to. That way, the current shatamaana could be called Uttaraabhaadra shatamaana. This time calendar is called saptarshi calendar or rshi-yuga panchanga.
Swastikah has been the index of Saptarshi panchanga for ages. Bhaagavata purana calculates the 29th rshi yuga to be the time of the start of story - 78300 years. Dating the narration at 5200 years, 83500 years ago. Regardless if how the 29th cycle was arrived at, it at least points to the fact that if the cycle was indeed kicked off 83500 years ago, the concept of Swastikah is also that old.
The worst case scenario of this tracking being an imagination, the symbol is at least 6000 years old, given this narration 5200 years ago, Harappan seal of 3800 BC (6000+ years ago) and it's knowledge in earlier scripts of Yajur and Rg veda.
The time cycle repeats and treats every deviation of society and retains the goodness as if nothing has happened, year after year, day after day, with a fresh awakening on a beautiful sunny day with a Swastikah Rangavalli welcoming the goodness that prevails.
Kadambari - The First Novel
The word 'Kadambari' is what is used, in a few south Indian languages like Kannada, Telugu and Marati, to refer to genre of literature that in English is called a 'novel'. A story that is usually voluminous giving a detailed account of the events and characters of a story that is semi-narrated and not directly always in the form of dialogues between the characters.
Now a days the word 'Kadambari' has become so synonymous to the word 'novel' that many people of these languages do not know the origin of the word altogether.
The word 'Kadambari' in its etymological origin is a word of Sanskrit that can refer based on context used to either a female Indian cuckoo or a type of liquor. However it is also used to mean 'a preaching crow' or the one who keeps on giving 'lectures' about one thing or the other. At a later point in time, a writer by name 'Banabhatta' used the word 'Kadambari' as a name of his heroine of his big novel type literary work. He named the work as 'Kadambari' as well. He must have named the heroine with all the three meanings of the word that was used till then - a female Indian cuckoo to represent the tone of his heroine and a liquor to represent the attachment and indulgence a reader may get reading it and as a preaching crow to represent the elaborate plot of the novel. This was the first voluminous story telling work that was written in 'prose' (unlike the voluminous poetry works like Ramayan, Mahabharat, etc). The novel became so famous that the name of the novel, 'Kadambari' is now used to mean 'novel' in many south Indian languages.
The story of the novel as well as its origin and the origin of its original inspiring work is very interesting. Before I give a brief overview of the novel, let us examine the historical related works.
From 250 BC till 230 AD, nearly for 500 years, south Indian region of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Karnataka was ruled by 'Shatavahana'/'Shalavahana' dynasty.
There was a king of this dynasty by name Simukha, who did not have any sons, but one daughter. It was the time when Mauryan empire had declined long back and Shatavahanas had declared independence. Kadambas and Pallavas were yet to become aggressive and try capturing the Shatavahana empire. It was the time of peace. King loved his daughter very much and to while away the time, asked people to tell stories. Story tellers were getting good rewards in return. By and by, the princess started losing interest in stories that 'ended'. She wanted to hear longer and more interesting stories and started getting angry at story tellers who 'finished' their story! During those times, Sanskrit was a prevalent language and the national language, even though local languages like Pali, Prakrut, Paishachik, Simhal, Brij, Avadh, etc were popular among the locals across India. The one who could speak, write and read Sanskrit was treated with respect as a well educated person. Being able to write works in Sanskrit was treated with more respect than writing in the local languages. So most of the writers preferred writing in Sanskrit.
Story tellers who used to tell stories in the Simukha's court and used to get rewarded with gold coins, 4 writers (lipikaraks) who can be used to get the stories written on bhoorjh patras or taale pathras to preserve the story in the written form. The 4 people used to take dictations from the story teller and later each person to make copies of the rest of the 3 writers and his writings again leading to 20 copies of the story (1+3+1 each). Then each of the 20 copies were distributed to writers across different dynasties for them to follow the same protocol and make more copies. However, it so happened that, in Simukha's court, the daughter started disliking the stories which 'ended'. So, as a sort of soft punishment, it was enforced on the story tellers and writers that if their story ended, it would not be written in Sanskrit, but in the local Paishachik language. This way the story even if were made copies, was more or less bound to remain locally and did not go out of Shatavahana dynasty where the local language Paishachik was not used much.
By and by the story tellers became discouraged, until one day a grand master of story telling by name Gunadhya came along. He promised not to end the story and that it be written in Sanskrit. The king was not however convinced that he could tell a story that does not end. But seeing his confidence, told him that he will grant 8 writers, 4 of whom would write in Sanskrit and 4 others in Paishachik. If the story ends, the sanskrit version will be burnt out. But if it does not end till the king himself and his daughter both die, he will get to keep both versions.
Gunadhya went on telling the story that was recorded as 'Brikat Katha' - the big story. It was composed in verses, not prose. It is said to have more than 6 lakh stanzas. By the time it had become 6 lakh verses, the king Simukha was long dead and the daughter's son was ruling the kingdom. But the daughter was continuing to listen to the story. Gunadhya had also gone old and one day while telling the story, collapsed and died.
According to her father's agreement with Gunadhya the daughter got the Sanskrit version of the book BURNT. What remained for a few centuries later was the Paishachik language version of the story.
This Brikatkatha of Gunadhya was some centuries later recovered by 'someone' (some say Buddhasvamin) and Brihatkatha Shloka Samgraha was written as a translation of the Paishachik version to Sanskrit.
This was used by Kshemendra to write a shorter Sanskrit version of the same by name Brihatkatha Manjari.
Again during later 8th century, for the entertainment of queen Suryamati of Kashmir, a poet by name Somadeva translated Brihatkatha in the same detail of original and called it Kathasaritsagara.
The original Sanskrit works have now been revived and made available by many. The original work Brihatkatha of Gunadhya has also been a direct inspiration for the other works like Vishnu Sharma's panchatantra, Vetalapanchavimshati (Vikram Betaal stories), Narayana's Hitopadesha along with Banabhatta's Kadambari. These are not translations but parts of Brihatkatha taken and the story of that part stretched out further.
The Kathasaritsagara has about 22000 verses. Off these about 160 verses of a particular chapter was chosen by Banabhatta to write his novel - 'Kadambari'. However, Banabhatta did not live to see the novel to completion but his son Bhushanabhatta finished the later part as per the plot laid out by his father. Just the 160 verses of Kathasaritsagara has been expounded to such a large novel that it is unbelievably huge.
The original Kadambari has been translated to English by Peter G Peterson in 1884, C M Ridding in 1896, P V Kane in 1921, M R Kale in 1968 and Gwendolyn Layne in 1991.
In Indian languages, there are so many local language translations that it is not even possible to write the entire list here. In Kannada, a great scholar of our times, Padmasri Vidyavachaspati Sri Bannanje Govindacharya has rendered it beautifully. The book is about 950 pages long and has been rendered flawlessly with a foreword by Da Ra Bendre.
The story plot is so intricate that while Christopher Nolan in his Inception went up to 4 levels of story within a story, this novel goes 7 layers deep. It is a story of 2 princes and 2 ladies falling in love with each prince falling for a different lady, separated by various factors and situations till they finally unite. Person A tells person B of a story of a person C where the person C hears his own story that he has forgotten from a person D who explains that person C was in love with a person E and when he first saw her and asked her whereabouts, person E narrates her story from her childhood where she had been friends with person F. She had met person F for the first time when person F told person E about her story of meeting person G. It goes deeper as the plot goes more thicker and more interesting. The story at each of the levels goes deeper and deeper and more and more intricate and after 7 layers of the story starts folding back to the original layers.
The entire story is a romantic fiction with a grandeur of places visited, wonderland of nature, so many twists and turns, making it very interesting. If you like fantasy fictions like the Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Narnia Chronicles, and the like, you should try reading this and then compare!!
Now a days the word 'Kadambari' has become so synonymous to the word 'novel' that many people of these languages do not know the origin of the word altogether.
The word 'Kadambari' in its etymological origin is a word of Sanskrit that can refer based on context used to either a female Indian cuckoo or a type of liquor. However it is also used to mean 'a preaching crow' or the one who keeps on giving 'lectures' about one thing or the other. At a later point in time, a writer by name 'Banabhatta' used the word 'Kadambari' as a name of his heroine of his big novel type literary work. He named the work as 'Kadambari' as well. He must have named the heroine with all the three meanings of the word that was used till then - a female Indian cuckoo to represent the tone of his heroine and a liquor to represent the attachment and indulgence a reader may get reading it and as a preaching crow to represent the elaborate plot of the novel. This was the first voluminous story telling work that was written in 'prose' (unlike the voluminous poetry works like Ramayan, Mahabharat, etc). The novel became so famous that the name of the novel, 'Kadambari' is now used to mean 'novel' in many south Indian languages.
 |
| Penguin Classic's English version of Kadambari |
The story of the novel as well as its origin and the origin of its original inspiring work is very interesting. Before I give a brief overview of the novel, let us examine the historical related works.
From 250 BC till 230 AD, nearly for 500 years, south Indian region of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Karnataka was ruled by 'Shatavahana'/'Shalavahana' dynasty.
There was a king of this dynasty by name Simukha, who did not have any sons, but one daughter. It was the time when Mauryan empire had declined long back and Shatavahanas had declared independence. Kadambas and Pallavas were yet to become aggressive and try capturing the Shatavahana empire. It was the time of peace. King loved his daughter very much and to while away the time, asked people to tell stories. Story tellers were getting good rewards in return. By and by, the princess started losing interest in stories that 'ended'. She wanted to hear longer and more interesting stories and started getting angry at story tellers who 'finished' their story! During those times, Sanskrit was a prevalent language and the national language, even though local languages like Pali, Prakrut, Paishachik, Simhal, Brij, Avadh, etc were popular among the locals across India. The one who could speak, write and read Sanskrit was treated with respect as a well educated person. Being able to write works in Sanskrit was treated with more respect than writing in the local languages. So most of the writers preferred writing in Sanskrit.
Story tellers who used to tell stories in the Simukha's court and used to get rewarded with gold coins, 4 writers (lipikaraks) who can be used to get the stories written on bhoorjh patras or taale pathras to preserve the story in the written form. The 4 people used to take dictations from the story teller and later each person to make copies of the rest of the 3 writers and his writings again leading to 20 copies of the story (1+3+1 each). Then each of the 20 copies were distributed to writers across different dynasties for them to follow the same protocol and make more copies. However, it so happened that, in Simukha's court, the daughter started disliking the stories which 'ended'. So, as a sort of soft punishment, it was enforced on the story tellers and writers that if their story ended, it would not be written in Sanskrit, but in the local Paishachik language. This way the story even if were made copies, was more or less bound to remain locally and did not go out of Shatavahana dynasty where the local language Paishachik was not used much.
By and by the story tellers became discouraged, until one day a grand master of story telling by name Gunadhya came along. He promised not to end the story and that it be written in Sanskrit. The king was not however convinced that he could tell a story that does not end. But seeing his confidence, told him that he will grant 8 writers, 4 of whom would write in Sanskrit and 4 others in Paishachik. If the story ends, the sanskrit version will be burnt out. But if it does not end till the king himself and his daughter both die, he will get to keep both versions.
Gunadhya went on telling the story that was recorded as 'Brikat Katha' - the big story. It was composed in verses, not prose. It is said to have more than 6 lakh stanzas. By the time it had become 6 lakh verses, the king Simukha was long dead and the daughter's son was ruling the kingdom. But the daughter was continuing to listen to the story. Gunadhya had also gone old and one day while telling the story, collapsed and died.
According to her father's agreement with Gunadhya the daughter got the Sanskrit version of the book BURNT. What remained for a few centuries later was the Paishachik language version of the story.
This Brikatkatha of Gunadhya was some centuries later recovered by 'someone' (some say Buddhasvamin) and Brihatkatha Shloka Samgraha was written as a translation of the Paishachik version to Sanskrit.
This was used by Kshemendra to write a shorter Sanskrit version of the same by name Brihatkatha Manjari.
Again during later 8th century, for the entertainment of queen Suryamati of Kashmir, a poet by name Somadeva translated Brihatkatha in the same detail of original and called it Kathasaritsagara.
The original Sanskrit works have now been revived and made available by many. The original work Brihatkatha of Gunadhya has also been a direct inspiration for the other works like Vishnu Sharma's panchatantra, Vetalapanchavimshati (Vikram Betaal stories), Narayana's Hitopadesha along with Banabhatta's Kadambari. These are not translations but parts of Brihatkatha taken and the story of that part stretched out further.
The Kathasaritsagara has about 22000 verses. Off these about 160 verses of a particular chapter was chosen by Banabhatta to write his novel - 'Kadambari'. However, Banabhatta did not live to see the novel to completion but his son Bhushanabhatta finished the later part as per the plot laid out by his father. Just the 160 verses of Kathasaritsagara has been expounded to such a large novel that it is unbelievably huge.
The original Kadambari has been translated to English by Peter G Peterson in 1884, C M Ridding in 1896, P V Kane in 1921, M R Kale in 1968 and Gwendolyn Layne in 1991.
In Indian languages, there are so many local language translations that it is not even possible to write the entire list here. In Kannada, a great scholar of our times, Padmasri Vidyavachaspati Sri Bannanje Govindacharya has rendered it beautifully. The book is about 950 pages long and has been rendered flawlessly with a foreword by Da Ra Bendre.
The story plot is so intricate that while Christopher Nolan in his Inception went up to 4 levels of story within a story, this novel goes 7 layers deep. It is a story of 2 princes and 2 ladies falling in love with each prince falling for a different lady, separated by various factors and situations till they finally unite. Person A tells person B of a story of a person C where the person C hears his own story that he has forgotten from a person D who explains that person C was in love with a person E and when he first saw her and asked her whereabouts, person E narrates her story from her childhood where she had been friends with person F. She had met person F for the first time when person F told person E about her story of meeting person G. It goes deeper as the plot goes more thicker and more interesting. The story at each of the levels goes deeper and deeper and more and more intricate and after 7 layers of the story starts folding back to the original layers.
The entire story is a romantic fiction with a grandeur of places visited, wonderland of nature, so many twists and turns, making it very interesting. If you like fantasy fictions like the Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Narnia Chronicles, and the like, you should try reading this and then compare!!
Astronomical Calculations and Differences Between Western and Vedic Astrology
When somebody asked me why is there a difference between their zodiac signs from what western astrology says to that of the vedic astrology, my first answer was a silent sigh with my mind going over the entire details of the answer. My second answer was the shorter version of it. They differ because western astrology uses Sun sign and ours uses Moon sign.
I thought I will write here the details of the first answer because the second answer is bound to have follow up questions if the person is really interested to understand the reason behind the difference. However, this may be a little too intricate and confusing. The reason I am writing it so detailed is, it takes a while to really understand it by reading multiple things at multiple places on the net. Just trying to explain it my way, which I think I am making an effort to simplify the things. However, this might have a lot of other things explained that may really not directly link to the above question, but definitely needed to have the correct overview of this detailed answer. I will not use the 'terminologies' a lot (like equinoxes, sidereal, tropical longitudes, zenith point, etc). I will use simple words like vertical line, point, date etc and not use new words so that you are unburdened and don't have to learn new words to understand the concept. Once you have the hold on the concept, you may refer the internet where 'terminologies' are used, but at that time you will be able to relate it to your understanding.
To understand the final answer, there are some concepts that one needs to first understand; which I was thinking I was taught fully in our high school astronomy classes, but unfortunately was very much incomplete.
First of all, let us assume you are aware of Copernicus theory of the Solar System. Sun is the center of the system of 9 planets revolving around it in the order - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. This entire system is trying to revolve around a black hole at the center of the Milky way galaxy. The solar system is towards the outer boundaries of this spiral galaxy and sun is within the black hole's gravity to be called as a part of the Milky way galaxy. Sun, along with this system is trying to revolve around the center of this black hole. I say trying because, the Sun is not expected to live long enough to be able to even put one full round around this galaxy. By the time he is 30 degrees ahead, the Sun would be a pulsar with all his planets destroyed. Okay, now. This entire galaxy along with the black hole till solar system and other stars within, is slowly moving away in one direction that is not same as the direction of other galaxies around it, but when this galaxy and others are together visualized, they seem to move away from each other yet not going near to anything as if they are dots on a balloon that is being blown up. The center of that balloon trying to move everything away from each other is unknown and is said to have originated from a big bang. May be that is the case or may be it is an oscillating universe with all points moving away from each other and then coming together after a threshold. Anyway, let us assume this much was taught in the high school to us all. We would probably also know that the earth is revolving around the Sun and Moon is revolving around the earth. Also Moon's revolutional orbit is not in the same plane as of Earth's orbit around the Sun. There is a small tilt of about 5 degrees because of which Solar and Lunar eclipses do not happen every 15 days. Earth's rotation plane (equatorial plane or the 90 deg to the line of North to South pole) itself is inclined 23.5 degrees to the revolutional plane giving rise to seasons. All this you would already know.
Now a few things you may know or may not, depending on the interest in this subject or the time you have given to it.
With this huge universe, when you say you are witnessing something, you need a reference point. To witness the galaxies expanding from each other, you need to stand at a point away from the galaxies. When you are talking about solar system, you are standing at a point above that plane to visualize the solar system as the Copernicus model. Now to understand the answer to our question, come back to earth and let that be the reference point. Geographically let us assume you are in India.
Go to an open field or top of the terrace and find out which is north. Lie down facing the sky putting your head towards north and feet towards south and stretch your hands either side. The place you are lying down is the reference point. Now, keep the Copernicus theory aside and see the observable universe. On your left had is the east and right hand west. Sun rises from east and hour by hour moves west till it is dark again. Did you notice? at 12 noon, you expected Sun to be right on top burning you face directly, but Sun was rather a little low and not exactly to the top peak? That is because you are in India, a little south to the equator. So the sun never actually comes right on top. If you were lying down at a place on Equator, Sun would have shone right on top. The lower you go, this rise to set path of Sun will bend further and further away till at south pole, it feels as if sun rise started at left and always was on horizon and moved west. Being in India, it will not be that deep, but definitely not at 90 degrees like one expects.
This line/trajectory/locus/path of the Sun is called 'ecliptic'. Ecliptic is the apparent path of the Sun around the earth.
Just like Sun, even moon because of earth daily rotation, feels as if he rises and sets. Moon has his own movements and depending on the phase, sometime is visible and sometimes not. But, if seen on a full moon day, moon appears on east (your left hand) and moves west (right hand) but again not always come right on top of your head. This would be the same type of movement for other planets too. If you see the considerably bright Venus, it moves from east to west. All planets move from your left hand towards your right hand. In fact all stars you see at night, you can see them move from left to right! All this happens because of earth's rotation. Now while still lying down, assume you see the ellipse - the path of Sun. Over many days if you observe, one fact becomes clear.
All planets and moon and Sun move within 18 degrees of this ellipse. That is if the movement of the Sun were to be on a 18 degree wide belt, all planets and moon too appear on the same belt - round the year for ages. This belt is called Zodiac belt. It is a 18 degree wide belt. If you stretch your hand and point the sky with the index and little finger stretched away from one another with middle finger and ring finger closed with the thumb, that distance is 15 degrees plus a distance of a thumb post that. This is a crude method of degree measurements our ancient men had. The width of little finger is 1 degrees, width of thumb is 2 degrees, width of index and middle and ring finger together is 5 degrees, width of a closed fist is 10 degrees and 15 degrees is what I just told. This belt is of 18 degrees and is called Zodiac belt that is divided into 12 'almost' equal parts called zodiac signs.
Now, let us assume you are lying down in this way to mark the position of Sun everyday at say 12 noon, assuming you have the ability to view the background star as well on the zodiac belt. Due to the tilt of earth's axis, the point keeps on moving up and down the vertical line in a pendulum fashion. The point where Sun is seen at 12 noon today is probably a little below the point where Sun is seen tomorrow at the same time. This movement has a simple harmonic motion of 1 year and every 6 months the point reverses its direction. To explain clearly, say you started this test in December end. You marked on a graph x axis with days starting from December till the next December. Y axis with the width of zodiac belt. First day you mark a point where you saw the Sun on zodiac belt. When you try to do the same tomorrow, you will see the Sun is slightly above it's yesterday's point. keep on doing it daily, till sometime in June mid. You will see the point at which Sun is seen is coming more and more above, towards your face, towards north. Post June mid, again the point starts falling back downwards. This observable up and down movement of Sun is what is called Uttarayana and Dakshinayana movements. If you were to do this exercise from Dec 2012 to Dec 2013, you will see on your graph that the bottom most point of Sun will be on Dec 21st and a mid point is seen on March 20th, then a top point seen on 21st June, again to the mid point on Sept 22nd and again the bottom most point on Dec 21st. This Dec 21st lowest point of Sun's position is called Southern Solstice. Top most point is called Northern Solstice. Mid point where Sun is moving towards Northern Solstice is called Northward Equinox and the mid point where Sun is moving towards Southern Solstice is called Southern Equinox. Now this Southern Solstice which is the Dec 21st date where Sun starts moving north is what is celebrated as 'Sankranti'. But from long time till these days, Jan 15th is celebrated as Sankranti and not Dec 21st. Let us see why that date difference is, later. But understand that conceptually Sankranti is the time of Uttarayana, the time when Sun starts moving northwards.
Now you know that Sun rises in the east and sets in the west making a path called ellipse. Then there is a year round up and down movement that can be visualized as a perpendicular line to this ecliptic. The rotation of earth is what makes us visualize the left to right path of ellipse while the revolution of earth is what will make us trace the vertical path of Sun's movement.
Now, as mentioned, the Zodiac belt is divided into 12 and Sun appears to be in one of the 12 zodiac signs at a given time. Instead of a point marking the sun's position, now start visualizing and using the vertical line as the Sun, moving horizontally across the zodiac belt, with the exact Sun's position somewhere on the vertical line.
The vertical line of sun's up and down motion is used as Sun's reference from here because, for now, let us not think about exact sun's position on this line, but the exact position of this vertical line with respect to the zodiac belt. Just remember, on Dec 21st, Sun is at the lowest point of this line and on June 21st, Sun is at the topmost point of this line.
Year after year, if you keep marking the lowest and topmost points of Sun, that is exactly of 1 year duration. However, over the years, you will see that with reference to the zodiac belt behind the Sun, the vertical line drawn on the day of the lower-most Sun - Dec 21st this year - will not be the same in a few more years. Say you witnessed the vertical line with lower most Sun on top of a particular Pisces zodiac star, Next year, when the Sun is lower most on the vertical line, he is a little towards your right hand when you are still lying down as I asked you to. The Sun's vertical line with the lower-most Sun's position has actually moved nearly 1 second angle. It is very small to notice because the exact angular difference from last year's lower-most Sun's vertical line behind a zodiac to this years is 50.29".
That is the vertical line has moved a little less than 1 second to your right. Visualize that on the lower most Sun's position on 2012 is on Dec 21st and the zodiac you see behind is Pisces. If you are still lying down as I said, you are seeing Pisces on your front with Sun at noon but you still can see the stars behind. On your right is the Aquarius zodiac followed by Capricorn. On the left of Pisces you see Aries followed by Taurus.
Next year in 2013 when you try to see the vertical path of Sun against the same background, it would seem a little on the right. Not significant because as mentioned below, the stretched hand with little finger's width is the apparent 1 degree. Divide that little finger width into 60 parts, Now, in 2013, the vertical line would have moved right not fully of 1 part of that 60 parts - a little lesser. So it is very small movement but a definitive movement of 50.29" seconds a year. The lowest point of Sun's path thus keeps on moving towards right at this rate year after year.
This movement happens because of the movement of earth's axis' movement such that the north pole of axis not pointing constantly to a star but rather over years encircling a set of stars. Let me not talk about that here, but just have the understanding that this movement of apparent Sun's vertical path is happening not because of earth's rotation or revolution, but because of the revolution of earth's north pole's point of the axis around a set of starts. Currently that axis points pole star or Dhruva star, but remember that it won't do so always. This concept is precession of equinoxes which I will deal at some other time. Forgetting the why, just remember the vertical line is not at the same place this year as it used to be last year - has moved a little right.
Understanding till here and clarity about the vertical line with reference to the background zodiac is crucial to move forward. Because I am going to talk about another vertical line that may confuse you.
Now, you were doing all the calculations based on the time of say 12 noon every day. Now lets get into that time. Forgetting Sun for the time being, looking at only the zodiac belt, if you are sticking to the clock in the hand and noting things down at 12 noon exactly, the star that you saw at 12 noon at one point today will seem to move a little 'right' tomorrow. No, its not very complex, because, the reason for this is, earth's rotation is not exactly 24 hr clock but 23 hrs, 56 mins 4 seconds a day. So even if your clock shows 12 noon, earth doesn't need the full 24 hrs of your clock to rotate fully around itself. Some 3 mins before itself, it has rotated full one round, right? That is the reason, the star you saw at one point yesterday seems be at the same point at 23 hrs 56 mins 4 secs itself and at 12 noon today is a little more to your right, west. remember? everything seems to move west as time goes by, right? So knowing that 24 hrs is not what we want to base our observations, take off that watch and just remember that a day is 23 hrs 56 min and 4 sec.
The star that is found at a particular point at a particular time will appear at the same point the next day at 23 hrs 56 min and 4 seconds. Now instead of 'a star', let us fix a star. But let us choose a star that is within the zodiac belt, we don't want to go far away from the belt and get confused. Let us take the 'Speca' star (Chitta) which is the brightest star in Virgo (Kanya). With this earth's rotation for an year, the star is expected to return to the same observable point at the same time after the earth has made 365.25 rotations. So after so many rotations, you, lying down the terrace can see Speca/Chitta star at the same place at the same time as you had seen the last year. This would be true for not just Speca/Chitta but to any star within the zodiac. It can be Speca or Aldebaran or the Sun itself. That is even the Sun takes 365.25 days to return to the same place in the sky. Now let us draw a vertical line parallel to the earlier vertical line of Sun's lowest most point line.
These two lines are not always same and do not overlap every year. The vertical line of lowest most point of Sun and the vertical line of return of Sun after 365.25 days varies year after year because of the precession of equinoxes. That is due to the change in the direction of the axis that points to the pole star, there will be a difference between these two vertical lines and the difference is 50.29 seconds a year. This difference is called ayanamsha.
There was a particular time when the difference between these two lines was 0 degrees. Mathematically if you go on subtracting 50.29 seconds difference each year to the now difference between these two vertical lines which is 24 degrees, you will at one point in the history see that the difference was 0. Earlier to that time, the difference would be negative, that is one line crosses over the other line in the opposite direction.
All till now is astronomy basics. If you understand till here, you will be able to understand astrological systems.
What you understood till now is what is available as per today's observations. This is how Sun is visualized over different zodiac signs looking from earth.
This calculation is not what is used in astrology. This is what is readily available from Google, Nasa, etc as of today. This data is readily downloadable on the net.
Western Astrology:
When at one point in time the difference between two vertical lines was zero, Greeks defined the boundaries of the zodiac. They called a person to be of a particular zodiac if Sun was in that particular zodiac when he was born. These dates are now revised to the observable Sun's lowest and top most points in the western astrology. Since Dec 21st onwards, as of now, the sun starts moving northwards on the vertical line, Dec 22nd till Jan 20th is called Capricorn and then Jan 21st till Feb 19th is Aquarius, Feb 20th till March 20th is Pisces, March 21st to April 20th is Aries, April 21st to May 21st is Taurus, May 22nd till June 21st (the topmost point of Sun on the vertical line) is Gemini, June 22nd to July 22nd is Cancer, July 23rd till Aug 22nd is Leo, Aug 23rd till Sept 23rd is Virgo, 24 Sept till 23rd Oct is Libra, 24th Oct till 22nd Nov is Scorpio and 23rd Nov till 21st Dec, the bottom most position of Sun, is Sagittarius. That is the western astrology (Fagan, Bradley, Burgess, Colebrooke, etc till the latest Linda Goodman and others) base their predictive astrology, on the first vertical line we talked about which sees the highest and lowest points of Sun on the vertical line each divided by 30 degrees movement of sun.
This however will keep changing over the years and based on the ephemeris (position of Sun and other planets), keep on changing the dates after every few years to adjust to the actual positions.
The start and end dates of each zodiac hence would keep changing based on the movement of the vertical line and the start of Capricorn would keep shifting backwards in date, because the line as we discussed will keep moving west. So the dates above are good for a few years to come after which they would be revised.
Greek Astrology:
This is the same western astronomy, when the difference between the start and end times of these zodiacs was zero. That is because the vertical line with bottom most sun was not on Dec 21st during the days of Greek (Ptolemy, Socrates, Plato, etc), but a date farther away on the calendar from that. Aries started 15th April till 15th May from the now 21st March to 20th April and Capricorn started from Jan 15th till 14th Feb. This also happened to be the time around 499 AD.
Before telling the details about Vedic astrology, a few points to note.
The difference between the two vertical lines we spoke about is currently 24 degrees. It will go on increasing till 27 degrees after which because of the revolution of the axis pointer's apparent motion of return, will start coming down from 27 degrees back to 0 degrees and then extend till 27 degrees on the other side.
Historically 0 degree difference happened during 499 AD and till 2299 AD it slowly keeps moving right till the difference between the two lines becomes 27 degrees. After 2300 AD, it starts decreasing from 27 degrees back to zero degrees in 4099 AD then go from 0 degrees to -27 degrees in 5899 AD. This pendulum type simple harmonic motion of the vertical line will keep happening.
According to this type of motion, the western astronomical dates need to be upgraded by and by as and when the difference is growing significantly.
So, the western or Greek astrology uses the apparent position of the Sun with respect to the 30 degree wavelength of the Sun's lower most point on the winter solstice to mark the beginning of Capricorn.
Vedic Astrology:
Instead of the simple harmonic motion of this sort, first and foremost, we normalized all the calculations to 0 degree. The best standardization that can be applied by an inventor of zero. Surya Siddhanta, Siddhanta Siromani of Bhaskaracharya, Aryabhaatiyam of Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Sayanaacharya and everyone in the vedic Siddhanta ganita, formed a system where, all calculations of the positions of all planets, Sun will be based on 0 degrees of this line and a factor of Ayanabhaga added/subtracted from this to arrive at the actual sayana siddhanta positions, otherwise, based on subtracted/added Ayanamsha to arrive at Nirayana siddhanta position. This is applicable to all except the Moon. Moon's position is calculated with a different equation mathematically with Aldebaran star (Rohini) as the starting point of observed position each month. However since Moon revolves around the sun along with the earth as if it is not a different entity and the observed moon's position is not impacted by earth's tilt since moon has to stick with earth and tilt it's orbital plane with the earth itself. So there is no question of the first vertical line calculated same way for moon as we did for the sun to vary yearly.
So, the vedic astrologers used Moon to identify the zodiac sign of a person. The zodiac that moon occupies at the birth time is what is taken as the zodiac of the person. This varies every ~2.5 days and hence cannot be give a "set of specific to and from dates" but accurately the position can be calculated. However, the system does not change with a simple harmonic motion of the moon and hence it is more fixed.
That is, we say to arrive at the exact 'observable' position of the planets and Sun, apply the Ayanamsha correction to the Nirayana calculated positions. It is not correct to assume vedic astrology is only Nirayana system and not saayana. But, all theory, predictions, results, etc are documented as per 'nirayana' that is at 0 degrees of Ayanamsha AND to actually calculate the sun rise time and to see the graha change the raashi or bhaa chakra, you need to apply the Ayanamsha correction to the same and see the saayana aspect of it.
Now a days softwares just reverse engineer the same to accurately reverse calculate the Nirayana positions from the tropical data. The positions can either be calculated based on equations given in Surya Siddhanta or based one ephemeris data from google and the like, which gives the positions as of today and then subtracting the ~24 degrees from the tropical ephemeris data, you get the data that can be cast at 0 degrees or Nirayana.
We also have the system called Tajaka where we also cast a Nirayana system chart like the western system - where every year of Tajaka is said to begin at the time when Sun is at the same degree minute and seconds as it was when a person was born. This system however even though it takes into account the the ayanamsha correction to be put, is based on the exact value that can be calculated for Ayanamsha. So, as per our ancient texts, this would be kept as an approximate annual casting and not the actual birth chart cast with a dasha.
So, our vedic astrology depended mainly on moon's position to determine the raashi of a person while it calculated the position of Sun and other planets with a Nirayana equation. Now a days the positions of Sun's and other planet's positions are calculated based on the available tropical data minus the ayanamsha value to arrive at the 0 degree position of the difference between the two vertical lines we discussed. So it has become very important these days to the modern softwares to know the exact values of the ayanamsha. Ayanamsha is calculated in various ways prescribed by Fagan-Bradley or Ptolemy or Burgess or NC Lahari or Krishnamurthi or BV Raman or as per Surya Siddhanta or even based on any given fixed star. There are about 20 famous ways which differ slightly in the value because of a different way to calculate it. Let me take that up in a different write up.
To answer the main question now in a slightly different way which I hope you can understand now, the western astrology uses a just-in-time position of Sun with respect to a just-in-time position of the winter solstice date to spread a 30 degree sun's movement and whichever zodiac the date falls in, would be the zodiac of the person. But the dates itself will vary after a few decades or centuries.
Vedic astrology on the otherhand uses the position of the moon in a particular zodiac as of the time the person is born, so that the solstices need not be considered, and then positions the Sun and other planets in the chart as if the chart is cast at 0 degrees of ayanamsha (Nirayana) and casts Tajaka charts based on the Sun's position but again normalizing to the nirayana 0 degrees.
Hope the longer version answer makes sense.
I thought I will write here the details of the first answer because the second answer is bound to have follow up questions if the person is really interested to understand the reason behind the difference. However, this may be a little too intricate and confusing. The reason I am writing it so detailed is, it takes a while to really understand it by reading multiple things at multiple places on the net. Just trying to explain it my way, which I think I am making an effort to simplify the things. However, this might have a lot of other things explained that may really not directly link to the above question, but definitely needed to have the correct overview of this detailed answer. I will not use the 'terminologies' a lot (like equinoxes, sidereal, tropical longitudes, zenith point, etc). I will use simple words like vertical line, point, date etc and not use new words so that you are unburdened and don't have to learn new words to understand the concept. Once you have the hold on the concept, you may refer the internet where 'terminologies' are used, but at that time you will be able to relate it to your understanding.
To understand the final answer, there are some concepts that one needs to first understand; which I was thinking I was taught fully in our high school astronomy classes, but unfortunately was very much incomplete.
First of all, let us assume you are aware of Copernicus theory of the Solar System. Sun is the center of the system of 9 planets revolving around it in the order - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. This entire system is trying to revolve around a black hole at the center of the Milky way galaxy. The solar system is towards the outer boundaries of this spiral galaxy and sun is within the black hole's gravity to be called as a part of the Milky way galaxy. Sun, along with this system is trying to revolve around the center of this black hole. I say trying because, the Sun is not expected to live long enough to be able to even put one full round around this galaxy. By the time he is 30 degrees ahead, the Sun would be a pulsar with all his planets destroyed. Okay, now. This entire galaxy along with the black hole till solar system and other stars within, is slowly moving away in one direction that is not same as the direction of other galaxies around it, but when this galaxy and others are together visualized, they seem to move away from each other yet not going near to anything as if they are dots on a balloon that is being blown up. The center of that balloon trying to move everything away from each other is unknown and is said to have originated from a big bang. May be that is the case or may be it is an oscillating universe with all points moving away from each other and then coming together after a threshold. Anyway, let us assume this much was taught in the high school to us all. We would probably also know that the earth is revolving around the Sun and Moon is revolving around the earth. Also Moon's revolutional orbit is not in the same plane as of Earth's orbit around the Sun. There is a small tilt of about 5 degrees because of which Solar and Lunar eclipses do not happen every 15 days. Earth's rotation plane (equatorial plane or the 90 deg to the line of North to South pole) itself is inclined 23.5 degrees to the revolutional plane giving rise to seasons. All this you would already know.
Now a few things you may know or may not, depending on the interest in this subject or the time you have given to it.
With this huge universe, when you say you are witnessing something, you need a reference point. To witness the galaxies expanding from each other, you need to stand at a point away from the galaxies. When you are talking about solar system, you are standing at a point above that plane to visualize the solar system as the Copernicus model. Now to understand the answer to our question, come back to earth and let that be the reference point. Geographically let us assume you are in India.
Go to an open field or top of the terrace and find out which is north. Lie down facing the sky putting your head towards north and feet towards south and stretch your hands either side. The place you are lying down is the reference point. Now, keep the Copernicus theory aside and see the observable universe. On your left had is the east and right hand west. Sun rises from east and hour by hour moves west till it is dark again. Did you notice? at 12 noon, you expected Sun to be right on top burning you face directly, but Sun was rather a little low and not exactly to the top peak? That is because you are in India, a little south to the equator. So the sun never actually comes right on top. If you were lying down at a place on Equator, Sun would have shone right on top. The lower you go, this rise to set path of Sun will bend further and further away till at south pole, it feels as if sun rise started at left and always was on horizon and moved west. Being in India, it will not be that deep, but definitely not at 90 degrees like one expects.
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| As you see in India - Wikipedia image |
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| As you see at Equator - Wikipedia image |
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| At the polar region - Wikipedia image |
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| Ecliptic - Wikipedia image |
Just like Sun, even moon because of earth daily rotation, feels as if he rises and sets. Moon has his own movements and depending on the phase, sometime is visible and sometimes not. But, if seen on a full moon day, moon appears on east (your left hand) and moves west (right hand) but again not always come right on top of your head. This would be the same type of movement for other planets too. If you see the considerably bright Venus, it moves from east to west. All planets move from your left hand towards your right hand. In fact all stars you see at night, you can see them move from left to right! All this happens because of earth's rotation. Now while still lying down, assume you see the ellipse - the path of Sun. Over many days if you observe, one fact becomes clear.
All planets and moon and Sun move within 18 degrees of this ellipse. That is if the movement of the Sun were to be on a 18 degree wide belt, all planets and moon too appear on the same belt - round the year for ages. This belt is called Zodiac belt. It is a 18 degree wide belt. If you stretch your hand and point the sky with the index and little finger stretched away from one another with middle finger and ring finger closed with the thumb, that distance is 15 degrees plus a distance of a thumb post that. This is a crude method of degree measurements our ancient men had. The width of little finger is 1 degrees, width of thumb is 2 degrees, width of index and middle and ring finger together is 5 degrees, width of a closed fist is 10 degrees and 15 degrees is what I just told. This belt is of 18 degrees and is called Zodiac belt that is divided into 12 'almost' equal parts called zodiac signs.
Now, let us assume you are lying down in this way to mark the position of Sun everyday at say 12 noon, assuming you have the ability to view the background star as well on the zodiac belt. Due to the tilt of earth's axis, the point keeps on moving up and down the vertical line in a pendulum fashion. The point where Sun is seen at 12 noon today is probably a little below the point where Sun is seen tomorrow at the same time. This movement has a simple harmonic motion of 1 year and every 6 months the point reverses its direction. To explain clearly, say you started this test in December end. You marked on a graph x axis with days starting from December till the next December. Y axis with the width of zodiac belt. First day you mark a point where you saw the Sun on zodiac belt. When you try to do the same tomorrow, you will see the Sun is slightly above it's yesterday's point. keep on doing it daily, till sometime in June mid. You will see the point at which Sun is seen is coming more and more above, towards your face, towards north. Post June mid, again the point starts falling back downwards. This observable up and down movement of Sun is what is called Uttarayana and Dakshinayana movements. If you were to do this exercise from Dec 2012 to Dec 2013, you will see on your graph that the bottom most point of Sun will be on Dec 21st and a mid point is seen on March 20th, then a top point seen on 21st June, again to the mid point on Sept 22nd and again the bottom most point on Dec 21st. This Dec 21st lowest point of Sun's position is called Southern Solstice. Top most point is called Northern Solstice. Mid point where Sun is moving towards Northern Solstice is called Northward Equinox and the mid point where Sun is moving towards Southern Solstice is called Southern Equinox. Now this Southern Solstice which is the Dec 21st date where Sun starts moving north is what is celebrated as 'Sankranti'. But from long time till these days, Jan 15th is celebrated as Sankranti and not Dec 21st. Let us see why that date difference is, later. But understand that conceptually Sankranti is the time of Uttarayana, the time when Sun starts moving northwards.
Now, as mentioned, the Zodiac belt is divided into 12 and Sun appears to be in one of the 12 zodiac signs at a given time. Instead of a point marking the sun's position, now start visualizing and using the vertical line as the Sun, moving horizontally across the zodiac belt, with the exact Sun's position somewhere on the vertical line.
The vertical line of sun's up and down motion is used as Sun's reference from here because, for now, let us not think about exact sun's position on this line, but the exact position of this vertical line with respect to the zodiac belt. Just remember, on Dec 21st, Sun is at the lowest point of this line and on June 21st, Sun is at the topmost point of this line.
Year after year, if you keep marking the lowest and topmost points of Sun, that is exactly of 1 year duration. However, over the years, you will see that with reference to the zodiac belt behind the Sun, the vertical line drawn on the day of the lower-most Sun - Dec 21st this year - will not be the same in a few more years. Say you witnessed the vertical line with lower most Sun on top of a particular Pisces zodiac star, Next year, when the Sun is lower most on the vertical line, he is a little towards your right hand when you are still lying down as I asked you to. The Sun's vertical line with the lower-most Sun's position has actually moved nearly 1 second angle. It is very small to notice because the exact angular difference from last year's lower-most Sun's vertical line behind a zodiac to this years is 50.29".
That is the vertical line has moved a little less than 1 second to your right. Visualize that on the lower most Sun's position on 2012 is on Dec 21st and the zodiac you see behind is Pisces. If you are still lying down as I said, you are seeing Pisces on your front with Sun at noon but you still can see the stars behind. On your right is the Aquarius zodiac followed by Capricorn. On the left of Pisces you see Aries followed by Taurus.
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| Apparent Sun in Pisces with Aquarius on the right and Aries on the left |
Next year in 2013 when you try to see the vertical path of Sun against the same background, it would seem a little on the right. Not significant because as mentioned below, the stretched hand with little finger's width is the apparent 1 degree. Divide that little finger width into 60 parts, Now, in 2013, the vertical line would have moved right not fully of 1 part of that 60 parts - a little lesser. So it is very small movement but a definitive movement of 50.29" seconds a year. The lowest point of Sun's path thus keeps on moving towards right at this rate year after year.
This movement happens because of the movement of earth's axis' movement such that the north pole of axis not pointing constantly to a star but rather over years encircling a set of stars. Let me not talk about that here, but just have the understanding that this movement of apparent Sun's vertical path is happening not because of earth's rotation or revolution, but because of the revolution of earth's north pole's point of the axis around a set of starts. Currently that axis points pole star or Dhruva star, but remember that it won't do so always. This concept is precession of equinoxes which I will deal at some other time. Forgetting the why, just remember the vertical line is not at the same place this year as it used to be last year - has moved a little right.
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| Earth's axis revolves around a set of apparent stars |
Understanding till here and clarity about the vertical line with reference to the background zodiac is crucial to move forward. Because I am going to talk about another vertical line that may confuse you.
Now, you were doing all the calculations based on the time of say 12 noon every day. Now lets get into that time. Forgetting Sun for the time being, looking at only the zodiac belt, if you are sticking to the clock in the hand and noting things down at 12 noon exactly, the star that you saw at 12 noon at one point today will seem to move a little 'right' tomorrow. No, its not very complex, because, the reason for this is, earth's rotation is not exactly 24 hr clock but 23 hrs, 56 mins 4 seconds a day. So even if your clock shows 12 noon, earth doesn't need the full 24 hrs of your clock to rotate fully around itself. Some 3 mins before itself, it has rotated full one round, right? That is the reason, the star you saw at one point yesterday seems be at the same point at 23 hrs 56 mins 4 secs itself and at 12 noon today is a little more to your right, west. remember? everything seems to move west as time goes by, right? So knowing that 24 hrs is not what we want to base our observations, take off that watch and just remember that a day is 23 hrs 56 min and 4 sec.
The star that is found at a particular point at a particular time will appear at the same point the next day at 23 hrs 56 min and 4 seconds. Now instead of 'a star', let us fix a star. But let us choose a star that is within the zodiac belt, we don't want to go far away from the belt and get confused. Let us take the 'Speca' star (Chitta) which is the brightest star in Virgo (Kanya). With this earth's rotation for an year, the star is expected to return to the same observable point at the same time after the earth has made 365.25 rotations. So after so many rotations, you, lying down the terrace can see Speca/Chitta star at the same place at the same time as you had seen the last year. This would be true for not just Speca/Chitta but to any star within the zodiac. It can be Speca or Aldebaran or the Sun itself. That is even the Sun takes 365.25 days to return to the same place in the sky. Now let us draw a vertical line parallel to the earlier vertical line of Sun's lowest most point line.
These two lines are not always same and do not overlap every year. The vertical line of lowest most point of Sun and the vertical line of return of Sun after 365.25 days varies year after year because of the precession of equinoxes. That is due to the change in the direction of the axis that points to the pole star, there will be a difference between these two vertical lines and the difference is 50.29 seconds a year. This difference is called ayanamsha.
There was a particular time when the difference between these two lines was 0 degrees. Mathematically if you go on subtracting 50.29 seconds difference each year to the now difference between these two vertical lines which is 24 degrees, you will at one point in the history see that the difference was 0. Earlier to that time, the difference would be negative, that is one line crosses over the other line in the opposite direction.
All till now is astronomy basics. If you understand till here, you will be able to understand astrological systems.
What you understood till now is what is available as per today's observations. This is how Sun is visualized over different zodiac signs looking from earth.
This calculation is not what is used in astrology. This is what is readily available from Google, Nasa, etc as of today. This data is readily downloadable on the net.
Western Astrology:
When at one point in time the difference between two vertical lines was zero, Greeks defined the boundaries of the zodiac. They called a person to be of a particular zodiac if Sun was in that particular zodiac when he was born. These dates are now revised to the observable Sun's lowest and top most points in the western astrology. Since Dec 21st onwards, as of now, the sun starts moving northwards on the vertical line, Dec 22nd till Jan 20th is called Capricorn and then Jan 21st till Feb 19th is Aquarius, Feb 20th till March 20th is Pisces, March 21st to April 20th is Aries, April 21st to May 21st is Taurus, May 22nd till June 21st (the topmost point of Sun on the vertical line) is Gemini, June 22nd to July 22nd is Cancer, July 23rd till Aug 22nd is Leo, Aug 23rd till Sept 23rd is Virgo, 24 Sept till 23rd Oct is Libra, 24th Oct till 22nd Nov is Scorpio and 23rd Nov till 21st Dec, the bottom most position of Sun, is Sagittarius. That is the western astrology (Fagan, Bradley, Burgess, Colebrooke, etc till the latest Linda Goodman and others) base their predictive astrology, on the first vertical line we talked about which sees the highest and lowest points of Sun on the vertical line each divided by 30 degrees movement of sun.
This however will keep changing over the years and based on the ephemeris (position of Sun and other planets), keep on changing the dates after every few years to adjust to the actual positions.
The start and end dates of each zodiac hence would keep changing based on the movement of the vertical line and the start of Capricorn would keep shifting backwards in date, because the line as we discussed will keep moving west. So the dates above are good for a few years to come after which they would be revised.
Greek Astrology:
This is the same western astronomy, when the difference between the start and end times of these zodiacs was zero. That is because the vertical line with bottom most sun was not on Dec 21st during the days of Greek (Ptolemy, Socrates, Plato, etc), but a date farther away on the calendar from that. Aries started 15th April till 15th May from the now 21st March to 20th April and Capricorn started from Jan 15th till 14th Feb. This also happened to be the time around 499 AD.
Before telling the details about Vedic astrology, a few points to note.
The difference between the two vertical lines we spoke about is currently 24 degrees. It will go on increasing till 27 degrees after which because of the revolution of the axis pointer's apparent motion of return, will start coming down from 27 degrees back to 0 degrees and then extend till 27 degrees on the other side.
Historically 0 degree difference happened during 499 AD and till 2299 AD it slowly keeps moving right till the difference between the two lines becomes 27 degrees. After 2300 AD, it starts decreasing from 27 degrees back to zero degrees in 4099 AD then go from 0 degrees to -27 degrees in 5899 AD. This pendulum type simple harmonic motion of the vertical line will keep happening.
According to this type of motion, the western astronomical dates need to be upgraded by and by as and when the difference is growing significantly.
So, the western or Greek astrology uses the apparent position of the Sun with respect to the 30 degree wavelength of the Sun's lower most point on the winter solstice to mark the beginning of Capricorn.
Vedic Astrology:
Instead of the simple harmonic motion of this sort, first and foremost, we normalized all the calculations to 0 degree. The best standardization that can be applied by an inventor of zero. Surya Siddhanta, Siddhanta Siromani of Bhaskaracharya, Aryabhaatiyam of Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Sayanaacharya and everyone in the vedic Siddhanta ganita, formed a system where, all calculations of the positions of all planets, Sun will be based on 0 degrees of this line and a factor of Ayanabhaga added/subtracted from this to arrive at the actual sayana siddhanta positions, otherwise, based on subtracted/added Ayanamsha to arrive at Nirayana siddhanta position. This is applicable to all except the Moon. Moon's position is calculated with a different equation mathematically with Aldebaran star (Rohini) as the starting point of observed position each month. However since Moon revolves around the sun along with the earth as if it is not a different entity and the observed moon's position is not impacted by earth's tilt since moon has to stick with earth and tilt it's orbital plane with the earth itself. So there is no question of the first vertical line calculated same way for moon as we did for the sun to vary yearly.
So, the vedic astrologers used Moon to identify the zodiac sign of a person. The zodiac that moon occupies at the birth time is what is taken as the zodiac of the person. This varies every ~2.5 days and hence cannot be give a "set of specific to and from dates" but accurately the position can be calculated. However, the system does not change with a simple harmonic motion of the moon and hence it is more fixed.
That is, we say to arrive at the exact 'observable' position of the planets and Sun, apply the Ayanamsha correction to the Nirayana calculated positions. It is not correct to assume vedic astrology is only Nirayana system and not saayana. But, all theory, predictions, results, etc are documented as per 'nirayana' that is at 0 degrees of Ayanamsha AND to actually calculate the sun rise time and to see the graha change the raashi or bhaa chakra, you need to apply the Ayanamsha correction to the same and see the saayana aspect of it.
Now a days softwares just reverse engineer the same to accurately reverse calculate the Nirayana positions from the tropical data. The positions can either be calculated based on equations given in Surya Siddhanta or based one ephemeris data from google and the like, which gives the positions as of today and then subtracting the ~24 degrees from the tropical ephemeris data, you get the data that can be cast at 0 degrees or Nirayana.
We also have the system called Tajaka where we also cast a Nirayana system chart like the western system - where every year of Tajaka is said to begin at the time when Sun is at the same degree minute and seconds as it was when a person was born. This system however even though it takes into account the the ayanamsha correction to be put, is based on the exact value that can be calculated for Ayanamsha. So, as per our ancient texts, this would be kept as an approximate annual casting and not the actual birth chart cast with a dasha.
So, our vedic astrology depended mainly on moon's position to determine the raashi of a person while it calculated the position of Sun and other planets with a Nirayana equation. Now a days the positions of Sun's and other planet's positions are calculated based on the available tropical data minus the ayanamsha value to arrive at the 0 degree position of the difference between the two vertical lines we discussed. So it has become very important these days to the modern softwares to know the exact values of the ayanamsha. Ayanamsha is calculated in various ways prescribed by Fagan-Bradley or Ptolemy or Burgess or NC Lahari or Krishnamurthi or BV Raman or as per Surya Siddhanta or even based on any given fixed star. There are about 20 famous ways which differ slightly in the value because of a different way to calculate it. Let me take that up in a different write up.
To answer the main question now in a slightly different way which I hope you can understand now, the western astrology uses a just-in-time position of Sun with respect to a just-in-time position of the winter solstice date to spread a 30 degree sun's movement and whichever zodiac the date falls in, would be the zodiac of the person. But the dates itself will vary after a few decades or centuries.
Vedic astrology on the otherhand uses the position of the moon in a particular zodiac as of the time the person is born, so that the solstices need not be considered, and then positions the Sun and other planets in the chart as if the chart is cast at 0 degrees of ayanamsha (Nirayana) and casts Tajaka charts based on the Sun's position but again normalizing to the nirayana 0 degrees.
Hope the longer version answer makes sense.
What Day Is It Today?
During the Vedic age itself, which is like 5500 years ago, we knew how to calculate time using light. We call it Siddhanta Jyotishya. Our Rg veda, Yajur veda, Samaveda, Atharvana Veda all have identified and documented a way to calculate time. But to explain the time system of ancient India, as a rabbit was once told by His Majesty in the Alice in the wonderland, let me begin at the beginning, go till the end and then stop. :)
Let me take you back to the Vedic era. In Bharatavarsha, we knew that at each place, the light, or Sun, moves at a pace of 6 amshas per vighati. With 60 vighati's making a Ghati and 60 ghati's making a tithi - which would be the exact time that Moon and Sun would differ by 12 degrees. As per the calculations we can understand today, if we reverse derive, 6 amshas/longitudinal degrees is traversed in 1 vighati or 24 minutes. That is 6 degree apparent movement of Sun takes 24 minutes or 1 degree movement takes 4 minutes.
That means if you are looking at the longitudes, 2 places on the same longitude (say New Delhi and Kanyakumari) will have exact same time, but two places 1 degree/amsha apart from each other longitudinally, will have a time difference of 4 minutes. Bharatavarsha is wide - Latitudinal extent: 8deg4min N to 37deg6min N and Longitudinal extent: 68deg7min E to 97deg25min E. The farthest point of India's west differs by 29deg 19mins from the farthest point in the India's east longitudinally. That is about 117.27 minutes of the clock which is nearly 2 hrs. So longitudinally farthest east coast will be 2 hours ahead of farthest west coast of India. This is true even today. This time is called local meridian time of a particular place. Our ancestors identified 12 places in India at different longitudes each apart by 10 minutes in meridian time to cover 2 hours or 120minutes from east to west all longitudes and named them as jyotirlingas or the light-indicators. These 12 places (dwadasha jyotirlinga) give the nearest time to the local meridian time from where every panchanga preparing guy would know how many ghatis he has to add/subtract to arrive at the exact local meridian time mathematically regardless of any tools like hourglass or so.
As an example, when a kid is born, the jataka is cast based on the the local meridian time of the place he is born. The calculation of this local meridian time is dependant on the longitude of the place he is born. The local meridian time is calculated as per the ghati-vighati after the sunrise of the day. So it is dependant on the exact moment of sunrise which is taken from the panchanga and adding/subtracting the local meridian correction to it. You can see all such location specific correction amount also listed out for major places in the panchangas of these days. So to know the exact birth time, we depend on the place (there by the correction factor) and the sunrise time listed in the panchanga. The sun rise time is listed after applying the exact calculation of difference between the nearest jyotirlinga longitude and what is known as a Indian prime meridian - called the Lanka Rekha. Lanka Rekha is a standard longitude which happens to be the average of the 12 jyotirling longitudes. This longitude passes via Lanka-Kanyakumari-Ujjaini-Hastinapura (the now new Delhi). So, as per the mathematical rules of writing a panchanga, the exact time of sunrise is normalized to the prime meridian. The sunrise time listed in the panchanga will be as if it is the exact moment of being able to see the disc of Sun appear on the horizon at the Lanka Rekha, say at Kanyakumari. There are standard deviations that can be arrived for each of the jyotirlinga places to get a more accurate local timing of sunrise and a local meridian correction that needs to be applied to this nearest-jyotirlinga sunrise time to get the exact time of sunrise at the location in question. Every year, there used to be a panchanga shravana to re-calibrate the 12 jyotirlinga timings and the prime meridian timings at the exact time the Sun would rise as well as cross the prime meridian. That also took into account the tithi - which was the difference between the Sun and the Moon - thus ensuring cross check of the time. That process of re-calibration was called the panchanga sravana which would sync up the lunisolar bhagas and amshakas to ensure the panchanga is sync at each location every year, year after year. Once this local sunrise time is known, the kundali/chakras (charts) and amsha-kundalis (divisional charts) are cast as per the number of ghati's and vighati's post the sunrise.
This way the entire India had a standard process that every astrologer followed to ensure the jatakarma (first of the 16 initiations - shodasha samskara) is done accurately that is valid at the standard prime meridian clock, but calculated at the local meridian accuracy.
If you look at the time calculations we followed during that time, we started a dina or vaara at Sunrise that is calculated thus. If at Sunrise, the tithi is ekadashi (ekadashi is when 120 deg or 240 deg diff between Sun and Moon), we called that entire day to be ekadashi regardless of the exact time of tithi pravesh (exact time the diff between sun and moon exceeding the subsequent 12 degrees). Then at that Sunrise, the constellation that the sun was in for that month, started the lagna - which is the 2 hrs duration. So since as of today, we are in Mithuna maasa (Sun in Mithuna rashi), at sun rise, lagna will be mithuna lagna and after 2 hrs of sunrise, karka lagna and then after 2 more hrs simha lagna, etc. This 2 hr duration was what was used to invite people to events like upanayana, vivaha, etc. If today we say we are inviting you to a vivaha taking place in the subha kanya lagna, knowing that today is mithuna rashi, one would know that the marriage is between noon 12 to 2pm of today's clock. That was the exact reason why 'during so-and-so shubha lagna' is written in the invitations, so that people could plan to reach the event place by that time. We do write the same these days in the traditional invitations, not knowing the significance of it.
So, this strong was (is) the time calculation system in India. Then over the centuries, Greek came along. This was not recent, it was nearly 3500-4000 yrs ago. We identified them as Yavanas or Yavana Rishis. They originated from west near the today's UK. They came via land over the Gandhara desha (today's Kandhahar - Afghanistan). They maintained in touch with their origin and after some centuries of learnings, went back with the learnings they got here. They however still wanted to be in 'sync' with us. So they maintained the same calculations as we did but traveled so far away back that the longitudinal time difference became 330 minutes apart = longitudinally 82.5 degrees away. Because of this, they saw that they expected the sun rise at 0 ghati and 0 vighati as per the mathematical calculations they did as per Indian calculations, but the sun did not rise at that time!! There was a delay of 13.75 vighatis for sun rise. Now they had the choice of calibrating the entire time calculating mathematics by 13.75 vighatis or 330 minutes or continue to call the same 0 ghatis and 0 vighatis as a start of the day. That is when an educated choice of keeping the same 0 ghati 0 vighati as the start of the day made more sense. So they started their day at almost 330 minutes earlier than the sunrise, the exact time when a person sitting in Kanyakumari would see the sun rise. That is the origin of a day at 00.00.00 hrs at GMT which is nearly 5hrs 30 mins behind us. why 5 hrs 30 mins, because that is the earliest time a sun can rise (sun rise time varies based on seasons from as early as 530am to 7am). We calculate the start of the day as the sun rise time at prime meridian, the lanka rekha, and it varies based on seasons. But the Greeks kept the earliest sun rise time that is 5:30 hrs behind India.
If you search for the origin of GMT you may not find anything that is older than AD 1800s or so. Deeper investigation only ends up in the answer of popularity among the locals of UK and only French people not using the GMT meridian. But nowhere you can find why GMT was based out of Greenwich. But Greenwich is exactly 82.5 degrees away from our Lanka Rekha and we are told India is exactly 5 hrs 30 mins ahead of GMT. Fortunately IST is defined at New Delhi which happens to be on the Lanka Rekha and hence it avoids further confusion.
Now think of 3 immortal beings - one - a rishi from vedic age sitting in Ujjaini, two - a Greek descendant who follows GMT sitting in Greenwich, UK and three - a IT software guy in India sitting in New Delhi.
Lets use time reference as the IT guy of India so that you appreciate the fact easily. At 12AM on his ultra slim Timex watch today, he will say 17th June 2012 has begun and it is Sunday in India. But the Greek guy at that very moment, being 5 hrs 30 mins behind, says it is still Saturday the 16th of June. The vedic rishi sitting in India also agrees with the Greek guy and says it is still Saturday the 16th of June, because he is yet to see the sun rise. After exactly 5 hrs and 30 mins, The vedic rishi sees a beautiful sun rising in the east horizon and pronounces the start of Sunday and bows down to the Suryanarayana in the east. The Greek guy sitting at UK, at the same time says, Sunday has begun for him too.
The only guy out of sync is the guy with the modern watch. Fortunately for us, the percentage of such guys is so much that a solid pseudo sync is in place. Everyone calling a new day a day 5 hrs 30 mins earlier itself at India. Everyone around the world follows GMT plus/minus their longitudes so that the day begins at 00.00.00 hrs and GMT in itself is following the earliest sun rise time of India.
Unfortunately, sitting in India itself, we follow GMT plus 5 hrs 30 mins as IST when we already had a solid time calculating methodology. Who is wrong? Nobody. Just that a vedic rishi of India and a person using GMT in UK are in sync with the time as per the original definition and the timex guy has done 3 wrongs (Trishanku? - two wrongs had made it right for the Greenwich guy), thus going out of sync.
The impact you might have seen in some people in India getting confused what day they were born. They would have born post midnight say at 2AM and think the day is say Monday, while their traditional horoscope mentions the day as Sunday! If you think, at 2AM when the person is born, the vedic rishi will say it is a Sunday still as the sun is yet to rise. The Greenwich Greek would say it is still Sunday because his clock is 5 hrs 30 mins behind and showing 8:30PM Sunday. Both of them agree that it was Sunday when he was born, but the timex guy of India in our brain is thinking it is already Monday as the timex shows 2AM. So, ideally what is mentioned in the jataka during such cases is correct regardless of what timex shows.
Think over it - is time, that which is shown in timex or that which we universally follow and are in sync??
Let me take you back to the Vedic era. In Bharatavarsha, we knew that at each place, the light, or Sun, moves at a pace of 6 amshas per vighati. With 60 vighati's making a Ghati and 60 ghati's making a tithi - which would be the exact time that Moon and Sun would differ by 12 degrees. As per the calculations we can understand today, if we reverse derive, 6 amshas/longitudinal degrees is traversed in 1 vighati or 24 minutes. That is 6 degree apparent movement of Sun takes 24 minutes or 1 degree movement takes 4 minutes.
That means if you are looking at the longitudes, 2 places on the same longitude (say New Delhi and Kanyakumari) will have exact same time, but two places 1 degree/amsha apart from each other longitudinally, will have a time difference of 4 minutes. Bharatavarsha is wide - Latitudinal extent: 8deg4min N to 37deg6min N and Longitudinal extent: 68deg7min E to 97deg25min E. The farthest point of India's west differs by 29deg 19mins from the farthest point in the India's east longitudinally. That is about 117.27 minutes of the clock which is nearly 2 hrs. So longitudinally farthest east coast will be 2 hours ahead of farthest west coast of India. This is true even today. This time is called local meridian time of a particular place. Our ancestors identified 12 places in India at different longitudes each apart by 10 minutes in meridian time to cover 2 hours or 120minutes from east to west all longitudes and named them as jyotirlingas or the light-indicators. These 12 places (dwadasha jyotirlinga) give the nearest time to the local meridian time from where every panchanga preparing guy would know how many ghatis he has to add/subtract to arrive at the exact local meridian time mathematically regardless of any tools like hourglass or so.
As an example, when a kid is born, the jataka is cast based on the the local meridian time of the place he is born. The calculation of this local meridian time is dependant on the longitude of the place he is born. The local meridian time is calculated as per the ghati-vighati after the sunrise of the day. So it is dependant on the exact moment of sunrise which is taken from the panchanga and adding/subtracting the local meridian correction to it. You can see all such location specific correction amount also listed out for major places in the panchangas of these days. So to know the exact birth time, we depend on the place (there by the correction factor) and the sunrise time listed in the panchanga. The sun rise time is listed after applying the exact calculation of difference between the nearest jyotirlinga longitude and what is known as a Indian prime meridian - called the Lanka Rekha. Lanka Rekha is a standard longitude which happens to be the average of the 12 jyotirling longitudes. This longitude passes via Lanka-Kanyakumari-Ujjaini-Hastinapura (the now new Delhi). So, as per the mathematical rules of writing a panchanga, the exact time of sunrise is normalized to the prime meridian. The sunrise time listed in the panchanga will be as if it is the exact moment of being able to see the disc of Sun appear on the horizon at the Lanka Rekha, say at Kanyakumari. There are standard deviations that can be arrived for each of the jyotirlinga places to get a more accurate local timing of sunrise and a local meridian correction that needs to be applied to this nearest-jyotirlinga sunrise time to get the exact time of sunrise at the location in question. Every year, there used to be a panchanga shravana to re-calibrate the 12 jyotirlinga timings and the prime meridian timings at the exact time the Sun would rise as well as cross the prime meridian. That also took into account the tithi - which was the difference between the Sun and the Moon - thus ensuring cross check of the time. That process of re-calibration was called the panchanga sravana which would sync up the lunisolar bhagas and amshakas to ensure the panchanga is sync at each location every year, year after year. Once this local sunrise time is known, the kundali/chakras (charts) and amsha-kundalis (divisional charts) are cast as per the number of ghati's and vighati's post the sunrise.
This way the entire India had a standard process that every astrologer followed to ensure the jatakarma (first of the 16 initiations - shodasha samskara) is done accurately that is valid at the standard prime meridian clock, but calculated at the local meridian accuracy.
If you look at the time calculations we followed during that time, we started a dina or vaara at Sunrise that is calculated thus. If at Sunrise, the tithi is ekadashi (ekadashi is when 120 deg or 240 deg diff between Sun and Moon), we called that entire day to be ekadashi regardless of the exact time of tithi pravesh (exact time the diff between sun and moon exceeding the subsequent 12 degrees). Then at that Sunrise, the constellation that the sun was in for that month, started the lagna - which is the 2 hrs duration. So since as of today, we are in Mithuna maasa (Sun in Mithuna rashi), at sun rise, lagna will be mithuna lagna and after 2 hrs of sunrise, karka lagna and then after 2 more hrs simha lagna, etc. This 2 hr duration was what was used to invite people to events like upanayana, vivaha, etc. If today we say we are inviting you to a vivaha taking place in the subha kanya lagna, knowing that today is mithuna rashi, one would know that the marriage is between noon 12 to 2pm of today's clock. That was the exact reason why 'during so-and-so shubha lagna' is written in the invitations, so that people could plan to reach the event place by that time. We do write the same these days in the traditional invitations, not knowing the significance of it.
So, this strong was (is) the time calculation system in India. Then over the centuries, Greek came along. This was not recent, it was nearly 3500-4000 yrs ago. We identified them as Yavanas or Yavana Rishis. They originated from west near the today's UK. They came via land over the Gandhara desha (today's Kandhahar - Afghanistan). They maintained in touch with their origin and after some centuries of learnings, went back with the learnings they got here. They however still wanted to be in 'sync' with us. So they maintained the same calculations as we did but traveled so far away back that the longitudinal time difference became 330 minutes apart = longitudinally 82.5 degrees away. Because of this, they saw that they expected the sun rise at 0 ghati and 0 vighati as per the mathematical calculations they did as per Indian calculations, but the sun did not rise at that time!! There was a delay of 13.75 vighatis for sun rise. Now they had the choice of calibrating the entire time calculating mathematics by 13.75 vighatis or 330 minutes or continue to call the same 0 ghatis and 0 vighatis as a start of the day. That is when an educated choice of keeping the same 0 ghati 0 vighati as the start of the day made more sense. So they started their day at almost 330 minutes earlier than the sunrise, the exact time when a person sitting in Kanyakumari would see the sun rise. That is the origin of a day at 00.00.00 hrs at GMT which is nearly 5hrs 30 mins behind us. why 5 hrs 30 mins, because that is the earliest time a sun can rise (sun rise time varies based on seasons from as early as 530am to 7am). We calculate the start of the day as the sun rise time at prime meridian, the lanka rekha, and it varies based on seasons. But the Greeks kept the earliest sun rise time that is 5:30 hrs behind India.
If you search for the origin of GMT you may not find anything that is older than AD 1800s or so. Deeper investigation only ends up in the answer of popularity among the locals of UK and only French people not using the GMT meridian. But nowhere you can find why GMT was based out of Greenwich. But Greenwich is exactly 82.5 degrees away from our Lanka Rekha and we are told India is exactly 5 hrs 30 mins ahead of GMT. Fortunately IST is defined at New Delhi which happens to be on the Lanka Rekha and hence it avoids further confusion.
Now think of 3 immortal beings - one - a rishi from vedic age sitting in Ujjaini, two - a Greek descendant who follows GMT sitting in Greenwich, UK and three - a IT software guy in India sitting in New Delhi.
Lets use time reference as the IT guy of India so that you appreciate the fact easily. At 12AM on his ultra slim Timex watch today, he will say 17th June 2012 has begun and it is Sunday in India. But the Greek guy at that very moment, being 5 hrs 30 mins behind, says it is still Saturday the 16th of June. The vedic rishi sitting in India also agrees with the Greek guy and says it is still Saturday the 16th of June, because he is yet to see the sun rise. After exactly 5 hrs and 30 mins, The vedic rishi sees a beautiful sun rising in the east horizon and pronounces the start of Sunday and bows down to the Suryanarayana in the east. The Greek guy sitting at UK, at the same time says, Sunday has begun for him too.
The only guy out of sync is the guy with the modern watch. Fortunately for us, the percentage of such guys is so much that a solid pseudo sync is in place. Everyone calling a new day a day 5 hrs 30 mins earlier itself at India. Everyone around the world follows GMT plus/minus their longitudes so that the day begins at 00.00.00 hrs and GMT in itself is following the earliest sun rise time of India.
Unfortunately, sitting in India itself, we follow GMT plus 5 hrs 30 mins as IST when we already had a solid time calculating methodology. Who is wrong? Nobody. Just that a vedic rishi of India and a person using GMT in UK are in sync with the time as per the original definition and the timex guy has done 3 wrongs (Trishanku? - two wrongs had made it right for the Greenwich guy), thus going out of sync.
The impact you might have seen in some people in India getting confused what day they were born. They would have born post midnight say at 2AM and think the day is say Monday, while their traditional horoscope mentions the day as Sunday! If you think, at 2AM when the person is born, the vedic rishi will say it is a Sunday still as the sun is yet to rise. The Greenwich Greek would say it is still Sunday because his clock is 5 hrs 30 mins behind and showing 8:30PM Sunday. Both of them agree that it was Sunday when he was born, but the timex guy of India in our brain is thinking it is already Monday as the timex shows 2AM. So, ideally what is mentioned in the jataka during such cases is correct regardless of what timex shows.
Think over it - is time, that which is shown in timex or that which we universally follow and are in sync??
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