Hindu new years day

[Martin Gansten]

>I don't know how the hindu astronmers define sakranti.

I've never heard of another definition than the ingress of a heavenly body
(usually, as here, the sun) into a new zodiacal sign. Does anyone else know?

>I would think that the topics as a concept would be new.

Tropical calculations were certainly known to Balabhadra, as he refers to
them explicitly. In fact, accepting the conservative view that horoscopy and
the zodiac entered India from Greece (which in my opinion is questionable,
but hardly disprovable), the tropical/sidereal difference ought to have been
known to Indian astrologers from the very beginning, as it was known to
Greek authors. And in any case it is a simple matter of observation: the
very concept of ayanas is based on the observation that the sun travels
northward half of the year and southward the other half. The tropics are
simply the limits of these northern and southern courses, respectively. In
fact, knowledge of the actual solstices and equinoxes does not require as
sophisticated an astronomy as confusing them with zodiacal ingresses does!

>I wish to check.  Which text to look?

A guess would be the Suryasiddhanta, though I haven't studied it in any
detail myself.

Best regards,
Martin Gansten