unlike some other religious texts that i could name -- which are pure fabrications -- the mahabharata (and probably the ramayana) is historically valid and dateable via the precession of the earth's axis. astronomy domine, again. to put it simply, since the axis of the earth precesses, we can tell accurately in which year an event happened simply by looking at the night sky at the time. and this is where planetarium software comes into the picture. (simple example: polaris is the pole star today, but 14,000 years ago, the pole star was if i remember correctly the star vega)
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From:
sri venkat Subject: Eclipse, astronomical events and the historicity of Mahabharata
To:
Of special interest is "In Mahabharata alone there are 150 instances
where worldly events are mentioned along with the planetary positions
in the sky. And, in addition to that, other astronomical events such
as occurrence of an eclipse, or appearance of a comet, or rare events
like shower of meteorites have been mentioned."
HISTORICITY OF MAHABHARATA WAR
http://www.indianresurgence.com/history1.htm In January 2001, Indian History Congress was holding its Annual
Conference at the Alipur Campus of the University of Calcutta and at
the concluding session of the said Conference the Nobel Laureate
economist Dr. Amartya Sen, while addressing the delegates, said that
Ramayana and Mahabharata do not have any historical value. These two
epics are simply mythology and nothing but poets' fancy. He also said
that neither Rama nor Krishna was a historical personality and both of
them were simply mythical.
Gandhiji wrote two commentaries on Shrimadbhagavadgita, Anasaktiyoga
and Gitabodha, and in the introduction of the former work, he wrote,
"Generally Mahabharata is taken to be a historical work. But in my
opinion, it is not so. I cannot say that Ramayana and Mahabharata are
historical works. They are simply religious works. If you are still
inclined to treat them as historical works, then I should say that
they are nothing but the history of the Self (Atma). They do not
contain what happened thousands of years ago. On the contrary, they
are the reflections of what is happening today in every soul". About
Lord Krishna, he wrote, "Krishna of Gita is the embodiment of pure and
divine knowledge, but without having any physical existence. By this
the Avatar Krishna is not denied at all, but only it is said that He
is mythical".
It is not difficult to understand that all such utterances of Sen,
Gandhi and many other like minded Indians derive inspiration from the
Western interpretation of Indian history. Most of the Western scholars
firmly believe that our ancestors grossly neglected writing history
and what we claim to be our history is nothing but mythology. So M.
Winternitz in his History of Indian Literature writes, "History is one
weak spot in Indian literature. It is, in fact, non-existent. The
total lack of historical sense is so characteristic that the whole
course of Sanskrit literature is darkened by the defect". The renowned
German scholar Max Muller, in his History of Ancient Sanskrit
Literature, writes, "No wonder that a nation like India cared so
little for history". "With regard to history, the Hindus have done
really nothing but romances from which some truth may occasionally be
extracted", says another Western scholar Major Wilford. These scholars
refuse to accept Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puranas as historical
works as there are no mention of year and dates of the events
described therein.
But people of this country firmly believe that Ramayana, Mahabharata
and the Puranas are their history and not simply epics or poets'
fancy. So Dr. S. Kalyanaraman, the director of the Chennai based
Saraswati River Research Centre, says that the historicity of the
events described in Ramayana and Mahabharata is validated by two
evidences: one is based on tradition and the other is based on
jyotisha, or planetary configurations and other celestial events
narrated along with mundane events described in those epics, which may
be called sky epigraphs.
So far tradition is concerned, people of this nation believe that Lord
Rama was born on the day of Ramanavami and Lord Krishna was born on
the day of Janmastami and so on. In fact, there is a long list of such
traditional beliefs such as: Bhishma died on the Bhishmastami day, on
the day of Vijaya Dashami, Lord Rama celebrated the day, with His
army, as the day of victory after killing Ravana and defeating his
army just on the previous day, on the day of Deepavali, Lord Rama
returned to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile and the people of Ayodhya
celebrated the day and decorated their houses by lighting lamps and
the tradition is still being continued; the War of Kurukshetra began
on the day of Gita Jayanti and so on and so forth.
It is really strange that the people of Western Garhwal,
now in the state of Uttaranchal, observe every year the Duryodhana
Festival. There also exists a temple dedicated to Duryodhana where
people offer their puja and many believe that the city of Varanavat,
where Duryodhana tried to burn the Pandavas alive, was situated in
that locality. It is also really striking that people of this country
offer water in memory of Bhishma during shraddha ceremony. The point
to be highlighted here is that, had all these been poets' fancy and
mythical, the traditions could not have been continued for such a long
time.
The aspect of celestial epigraph, or planetary positions
described in these epics, particularly in Mahabharata, undoubtedly
shows that the said epics do mention the dates of events described
therein, which the Western scholars failed miserably to understand. In
Mahabharata alone there are 150 instances where worldly events are
mentioned along with the planetary positions in the sky. And, in
addition to that, other astronomical events such as occurrence of an
eclipse, or appearance of a comet, or rare events like shower of
meteorites have been mentioned. A few of such examples may be
mentioned below
The Udyoga Parva of Mahabharata narrates that, just before the War,
Lord Krishna, in His final peace mission, went to Hastinapur in the
month of Kartika. He set out on the day when moon was at the asterism
Revati. On His way to Hastinapur, Krishna took rest for a day at a
place called Brikasthala, and on that day the moon was at the asterism
Bharani. The day on which Duryodhana turned down each and every effort
of Lord Krishna to make peace and made the war inevitable, the moon
was resting at the asterism Pushya. And the Lord left Hastinapura with
Karna, on the day when the moon was yet to reach the asterism Uttara
Phalguni. As mentioned above, Karna accompanied Him to some distance
to see Him off and he then described to the Lord the positions of
planets in the sky and expressed his apprehension that such a
planetary configuration stood for very bad omen: such as large scale
loss of life and drenching of blood. Vyasadeva narrated all these
planetary positions in as many as sixteen verses as if someone was
describing it after visualizing them in the sky. It is also well known
that during the War, Lord Balarama went on a pilgrimage to holy places
along the banks of the River Saraswati and Mahabharata describes the
position of the moon during the entire course of pilgrimage. For
example, He set out on the day when the moon was at the asterism
Pushya and returned on the day when the moon was at the asterism
Shravana.
The Mahabharata also mentions the occurrence of a solar
eclipse at the asterism Jyestha and a lunar eclipse at the asterism
Krittika, just before the beginning of the War. It also mentions the
appearance of a comet at the asterism Pushya, on the 8th day of the
bright half of the month of Magha, when Bhishma died. On that day the
moon was at the asterism Rohini and it was the day of Winter Solstice.
The day on which Ghatotkacha, son of Bhima, died, the moon appeared at
the horizon at 2.00 a.m. The epic also mentions the occurrence of a
very rare astronomical event that took place prior to the War: three
eclipses, two lunar and a solar, within a lunar month of 27 days.
There is also another continuing tradition in this country
that says that the beginning of the present Kali Yuga, Kurukshetra
War, death of Lord Krishna and coronation of Emperor Yudhishthira were
contemporary events. Famous astronomer Aryabhatta in his celebrated
work Aryabhatiyam had accepted the said tradition and used the word
"Bharatapurvam" in the said work very often and scholars agree that he
used the word to refer to such events that occurred before the
Mahabharata War. In 1991, Dr. D. Abhayankar and Dr. Ballabh of the
Osmania University calculated that the present Kali Yuga began on 7th
February, 3104 B.C. But it is now well accepted by the both Eastern
and the Western scholars that the present Kali Yuga began on the
midnight of 17th and 18th February, 3102 B.C. And hence it can roughly
be said that the Mahabharata War took place nearly 5000 years ago from
now.
Today, man has created a machine called computer which,
though most idiotic, can do mathematical calculations at an incredible
speed. According to a popular ad of a computer company, the
calculations which Johannes Kepler took ten years to complete, can be
done today within minutes, using a computer. It has therefore been
possible for the scientists, with the help of this fantastic machine,
to determine the dates of ancient events with unthinkable accuracy,
using the planetary configurations given in the Mahabharata , as
inputs. They have developed so many software for this purpose and to
name a few are: (1) Planetarium, (2) Ecliptic, (3) Lode star and
the(4) Panchang Software.
In 2003, a two day seminar was held on 5th and 6th
January, in Bangalore, on "The Date of Mahabharata War: Based on
Astronomical Data Using Planetarium Software", and a few of the
eminent researchers who submitted papers were (1) Dr. S. Balakrishna
of NASA, USA; (2) Dr. B. N. Narahari Achar, Department of Physics,
Memphis University, USA; (3) Dr. R. N. Iyengar, Department of Civil
Engineering, IISc, Bangalore; (4) Dr. S. Kalyanaraman, Saraswati River
Research Centre, Chennai and so on. These scientists agree that there
does not exist any contradiction between any two descriptions of
planetary configurations given in the Mahabharata.
Dr. S. Balakrishna has studied the eclipses, both solar and lunar,
described in the Mahabharata and tried to find out the dates of those
eclipses using the Lode Star Software. Generally 240 solar and 150
lunar eclipses occur in a century and during the period from 3300 B.C.
to 700 B.C. nearly 6000 solar and 4000 lunar eclipses took place,
though not all of them were visible from India, or to be more precise,
fromKurukshetra. Out of them, 672 were eclipse pairs, or both solar
and lunar eclipses within a lunar month. Dr. Balakrishna studied the
eclipses those have been mentioned in the text of Mahabharata. In
fact, there are mentions of solar eclipses at 8 places in Mahabharata,
out of which three of them are very important. Firstly, the solar
eclipse that is mentioned in the Sabha Parva. The second solar eclipse
which is mentioned in the Udyoga Parva to which Karna tried to draw
the attention of Lord Krishna when He was returning from Hastinapur.
The third important solar eclipse has been mentioned in the Shalya
Parva, that occurred along with two lunar eclipses within a month.
Many believe that there was a total solar eclipse occurred on the 13th
day of the War, which has been allegorically mentioned as covering the
sun by Lord Krishna with His Sudarshan Chakra.
The epic Mahabharata has so many other aspects which
common people do not know. Firstly, the epic as we see it today
containing 100,000 verses was not the creation of Vedavyasa. He
composed what was then known as the Jai, containing only 8,800 verses.
Later on Rishi Vaishampayana enlarged it to contain 24,000 verses
which was then known as the Bharata. Finally Sauti, the son of the
suta (the chariot driver) Lomaharshana, gave it present form as we see
now, containing 100,000 verses.
It has been mentioned earlier that just prior to the
Mahabharata War, a very rare event of three eclipses occurring within
a lunar month took place: a lunar eclipse followed by a solar one and
then another lunar eclipse. According to the text of Mahabharata, the
solar eclipse occurred just 13 days after the first lunar eclipse. Dr.
S. Balakrishna of NASA, USA, has searched all eclipse pairs, a lunar
eclipse followed by a solar eclipse after 13 days, that took place
from 3300 B.C. to 700 B.C., using the Lodestar pro-software. He found
that nearly 672 eclipse pairs have occurred within the said period,
out of which 27 pairs have been found to have less than 14 days time
gap. And according to Dr. Balakrishna, the eclipse pair of 2559 is the
best match with the description given in the text of Mahabharata. But
according to Dr. Kalyanaraman, the eclipses occurred in 3067 B.C.- the
lunar eclipse on 29th September at the asterism Krittika and the solar
eclipse on 14th October at the asterism Jyestha.
Researcher Dr. P. V. Holay examined 6 planetary
configurations given in the Mahabharata and concluded that the War
began on 13th November, 3143 B.C. But Dr. K. S. Raghavan and his
coworker Dr. G. S. Sampath Iyengar, using the Planetarium software
came to the conclusion that the Kurukshetra War began on 22nd day of
November, 3067 B.C. (according to the present Gregorian calendar).
Professor Dr. Narahari Achar of the University of Memphis, USA, also
arrived at the same conclusion using the said Planetarium software.
Dr. S. Kalyanaraman of the Saraswati River Research Centre, Chennai,
found the estimates of Dr. K. S. Raghavan and Dr. Narahari Achar
correct and, on that basis, calculated the dates of some other
important events of Mahabharata.
For example: Lord Krishna, on His final peace mission, set out for
Hastinapur on 26th September, 3067 B.C. when the moon was at the
asterism Revati. Lord Krishna arrived Hastinapur on 28th September,
3067 B.C., when the moon was at the asterism Bharani. The full moon
and lunar eclipse at Krittika occurred on 29th September, 3067 B.C.
The solar eclipse at Jyestha occurred on 14th October, 3067 B.C.
Lord Balarama set out for pilgrimage on 1st November, 3067 B.C.
The War began on 22nd November, 3067 B.C.
Lord Balarama concluded His pilgrimage on 12th December, 3067 B.C.
The winter solstice occurred on 13th January, 3066 B.C.
Bhishma died on 17th January, 3066 B.C.
The comet Mahaghora appeared at the asterism Pushya in October, 3066 B.C.
Finally, it should be mentioned that the said seminar officially
accepted that the Mahabharata War began, as mentioned above, on 22nd
November, 3067 B.C. So it appears that the Mahabharata War took place,
not in Dwapara Yuga but, in the 35th year of the present Kali Yuga. It
is not unlikely because according to the text of Mahabharata, the War
took place at the juncture of Dwapara and Kali Yuga.
Last year, (2005 A.D.), astrologer Arun Kumar Bansal, using computer
software, calculated date of birth of Lord Krishna and it was 21st
July, 3228 B.C. So it appears that during the Mahabharata War, age of
Lord Krishna was 161 years. At the first sight, it may appear to be
absurd. But it should be mentioned here that, according to Hindu
scriptures, the normal life span of human beings is 400 years in Krita
(or Satya), 300 years in Treta, 200 years in Dwapara and 100 years in
Kali Yuga. In fact, during the Kurukshetra War, most of the military
top brass of both Kauravas and Pandavas were more than 100 years old.
To conclude, it should be mentioned here that the discovery of the
ruins of the city of Dwaraka by the renowned archaeologist Dr. S. R.
Rao, under the Arabian Sea, provides another strong evidence that Lord
Krishna and the story of Mahabharata were a reality and not simply
poet's fancy.
