Q: New Year

[Girish Beeharry]

Hi,

On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, Luis Arnold Gonzalez-Reimann wrote:

> I am sure anyone on the list not conversant with spherical astronomy 
> would benefit from these books if they were interested in pursuing the 
> matter at that level. There are also other good introductions to the subject.
> Nevertheless, our discussion about the beginning of the uttarAyaNa (the 
> Sun's movement towards the North) does not require of spherical 
> astronomy.  If one wishes to understand precession, such texts could be 
> useful, as might a visit to the local planetarium. But it must be kept in 
> mind that a concept such as uttarAyaNa (as also, for that matter,that of 
> solstice "when the Sun stands still") is not derived from an 
> understanding of our kind of astronomy, which is fully aware of the fact 
> that the earth is round, and that it revolves around the Sun.
> 
I think that we are talking at cross purpose. I find the statement about the
uttarAyaNa not requiring spherical trigonometry for an explanation rather 
strange, at the least. On the contrary, it has everything to do with it. 
It is like saying that the translation of a Sanskrit text has 
nothing to do with vyAkaraNa! A 'visit to the local planetarium' is 
simply another way of saying:'Oh, the maths are a bit hard, lets go to 
see the applications in a concrete manner.'

The laws of astronomy do not depend on culture. They are mathematical. 
The only thing that differs is that while formerly the astronomers used to 
write their equations in a geocentric coordinate system, they now prefer the
more 'natural' heliocentric system. However, we still are observing from 
the earth and this is the cause of the difficulties we have in understanding
all these concepts clearly. 

> The concept of uttarAyaNa is derived from the observation of the apparent 
> daily movement of the Sun above the horizon. More precisely, it is based 
> on the fact that the Sun does not rise at the same point along the 
> horizon each day. At the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year), the 
> Sun rises far to the right 
> of due East. Each subsequent day it rises more to the left, i.e. to the 
> north; first slowly, and then faster as it passes by due East (at the time 
> of the spring equinox), and it slows again when it nears the point where 
> it rises further to the north of due East, at the time of the summer 
> solstice (the longest day of the year).  The Sun then turns, and begins its 
> movement towards the South (the right), the dakSiNAyana.
> All of this happens regardless of what the position of the solstices and 
> the equinoxes is against the backdrop of the stars.  In other words, it 
> doesn't matter what rA'si - or should we rather say, in a Vedic context, 
> what nakSatra- the solstices might happen to fall on at the time.
> These two halves of the year played an important role in Vedic ritual, 
> particularly in the gavAm Ayana.
> 
If one wants to describe the motion of an ant across a sheet of paper, 
one has to remember that it is moving in two dimensions. So, one has to 
describe its motion in two sets of coordinates. Surely this is quite simple.
One cannot just forget one dimension and just pretend that it is not 
important. If one replaces the ant by the Sun and the the sheet of paper by
the celestial sphere, it is immediately obvious that we cannot just say that
">  In other words, it
> doesn't matter what rA'si - or should we rather say, in a Vedic context,
> what nakSatra- the solstices might happen to fall on at the time" 
It does simply because the so-called 'First Point of Aries' is not in Aries
but in Pisces ( we don't know exactly where and this is how this whole 
discussion started). It doesn't make much sense to describe the surface of
a sphere with one great circle only.

Another fact is that when the jyotisha paNDitas talk about the rAshis or
nakshatras, they are in fact talking about convenient regions of space which
might be, at least within the error bars of the precession correction, 
the regions where the rAshis and nakshatras were when the sUryasiddhAnta was
written. Western astrologers talk about their own particular brand of rAshis
by not making the precession correction. 
The International Astronomers Union have divided the sky into 88 constellations 
(again different from the former two) and according to that the Sun actually 
goes through a thirteenth constellation in December, the constellation of 
Ophiuchus.

I am quite disinclined to pursue this matter unless participants study some
basic spherical trigonometry and astronomy.

Bye,

Girish Beeharry.