Q: New Year

[mgansten at sbbs.se]

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