Q: New Year

[Luis Arnold Gonzalez-Reimann]

On Wed, 17 Apr 1996, Martin Gansten wrote:

> Girish Beeharry writes:
> 
> >Well, I don't think you are right. According to the jyotisha paNDitas, the Sun 
> >enters the constellation of Capricorn on or around the 14th of January and
> >uttarAyaNa starts then. The Sun, according to the popular press, enters 
> >the tropical constellation of Capricorn around the 22nd(?) of December. The 
> >ayanAMsha has already been taken care of. 
> 
> I'm still not sure the indology list is the right forum for this discussion,
> but anyway: the northern and southern courses of the sun (the ayanas) are
> not really related to the rAs'is; they are related to the summer and winter
> solstices, which no longer coincide with the sidereal saMkrAntis. Any
> paNDita worth his salt surely knows this. Like the equinoctial points, the
> solstice points are slowly regressing through the zodiac; in a few hundred
> years, they will coincide with dhanuH- and mithuna-saMkrAntis, respectively.
> 
> Martin Gansten
> mgansten at sbbs.se
> 
> 
> 

Although Martin Gansten has already clarified the point, I still would 
like to add the following:

If there are pANditas today who claim the uttarAyaNa starts around 
January 14, then they must have redefined the meaning of the term 
utttarAyaNa (and of its conterpart, dakSiNAyana).
Since the time of the BrAhmaNas the three main astronomical cycles (the 
day, the lunar month, the year) have been divided into a light and a dark 
half.  During the light half, light is increasing and darkness 
decreasing; during the dark half, the situation is reversed.
The light half of the Moon's cycle goes from new to full Moon; the light 
half of the daily cycle goes from sunrise to sunset (although it should 
really go from midnight to noon, and some BrAhmaNas do account for 
this).  The light half of the yearly cycle goes from the winter solstice 
to the summer solstice, because the day of the winter solstice is the 
shortest one of the year, and, thus, from then on days start lasting 
longer, in other words, light is increasing.
In the UpaniSads and the GItA the light halves are considered auspicious, 
and that is why BhISma(in the Mbh) waited for 58 nights before dying, so 
he could do it when the Sun had "turned", that is, on or after the winter 
solstice.
This has nothing to do with the rAs'is, as they have fallen out of synch 
with the seasons.  When the ayanAms'a was zero, some 1 600 years ago, they 
coincided for a brief period.
The shortest day of the year is clearly not around the 14th of January.

As for the age of the SUrya SiddhAnta, you might want to consult David 
Pingree's JyotiHs'Astra: Astral and Mathematical Literature.  Wiesbaden: 
Otto Harrassowitz, 1981.

Sincerely,


Luis Gonzalez-Reimann
Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies
University of California, Berkeley