by Mr. Sunder Rajan
Mararshi Bharadvaja (father or ancestor of Dronacharya) as mentioned in the Ramayana may not be the the author of Amshu-bodhini or Yantra Sarvasva (as there is no corroborative or contemporary reference to it in the Ramayana or subsequent texts.)
Some major and minor Indian works have been written by lesser known people (who themselves were stalwarts), but chose to attribute the text to known personalities for the sake of social acceptance.. and on the other hand, there are great authors whom people do not even know of.. for example Nandhi, Swetakethu, Kanadha, Bodhayana etc have made great contributions but are totally unknown. It will be definitely interesting to explore these personalities sometime (when there is sufficient time and interest.)
Astronomy vs Astrology: Astronomy is the objective study of the Heavenly bodies while Astrology is a subjective study (of the cosmos relation to a particular life form.) Some people are confused about preparing Jathakams for kids born in Northamerica (whether to take Daylight savings into consideration or not etc.) Just imagine the earth as a 'flat earth model'.. at any given moment, the horoscope of a person born ANYWHERE on earth will be exactly the same.. i.e. A person born in California at 1.00 AM PST will be the same as a person born at 1:30 PM IST. (The major chart positions will be the same, but minor ones like navamsa or sthaana bhala etc may differ slightly.)
Maintaining astral records of a birth: Why do Indians make horoscopes when a baby is born? Well, the recording of a 'jathakam' or 'horoscope' for tracking a person's birth date is much more reliable than an 'english date of birth'!! Reason?? Let's say a birth certificate says, 1st January, 1970... and a martian finds this, say 10000 years from now.. the number 1970 will mean nothing to them.. 1970 from what? On the other hand, if the same martian finds a chart (Sun in this position, moon in this position, Jupiter there, mars here etc..) The placement of the heavenly bodies will chart back to a unique date and time in the past (provided the martian knows how to calculate these position ;))
Very nicely put Sunder. But if all over the world/I mean earth it is same them why are there differences in the celebration of some festivals. As I understand the recording of the relative position of the celestial bodies is on thing, but the earth position with relation to the sun and the moon does effect the astrology.
ReplyDeleteSecondly even the night sky is not the same all over the world that means the relative positions of various stars are also different, so how is that taken into accout?/
PVR