Mystery of date and time in life!

Dr. PK CHHETRI

       When you go for a stroll in any unfamiliar city, and, if you have a plan of the city with you, then, it will come in handy, and, say, if you are looking for any acquaintance in the city, you will need his proper address. When you go for a stroll at night across the starry skies, a star chart will be of use to you, and, in order to search for a star in the sky, you will need its address. The address of a star means its coordinates in the sky. This speaks about the apparent place of a star in the sky, not about its position in space. 

      To any casual observer, the sky appears to be a half ball or sphere at which he looks from inside and at the centre of which he is located. In fact, half of the sphere is hidden below the horizon and all heavenly bodies appear to be distant from us. Say, if we think all stars are located on the surface of the celestial sphere, we can conveniently fix the apparent positions or coordinates of the stars. By knowing these positions, we can easily find these stars in the sky. As soon as we find a star in the sky, we can then easily note its place on the star map. This is exactly what an astronomer has been doing since time memorial. 

      Let us think for a while, we are at the centre of the imaginary celestial sphere, mentally extend through our eye a plane parallel to the plane of the Earth's equator, then it will intersect the sphere in a large circle called the celestial equator. Again imagine a line passing through our eyes and parallel to the axis of the rotation of the Earth; it will intersect the celestial sphere at points called the poles of the Universe. The northern pole happens to be close to a bright star, called the Pole star, and can be easily found from a group of seven bright stars arranged in the form of a dipper and called the constellation Great Bear. 

     Both on Earth and in the celestial sphere, it is possible for us to determine the position of any point with two coordinates, and on Earth these coordinates are the geographical latitude and longitude. As we have learnt in our school days, latitude is reckoned in degrees starting at zero from the Earth's equator and increasing along the arc of the meridian either towards the North or towards the South Pole. The latitude of a point is the number of degrees from the equator to it, whereas longitude is measured along the equator from a meridian accepted as the base meridian to the meridian passing through the given point. 

       In case of geographic latitude for the celestial sphere declination is used. This declination is also measured in degrees, like latitude, from the celestial equator towards one of the poles of the Universe. For geographic longitude right ascension is used on the celestial sphere. It is the angle between some base celestial meridian and the meridian passing through the point in the sky. 

    To sum up, the declination and ascension of a body are its coordinates, its address, in the sky. The overwhelming majority of "sky-dwellers" or in common parlance stars are settled, that is they rest in the same place or address all the time, apparently they seem so for sky grazers, but not for astronomers. That said, there are some wandering bodies, known as celestial nomads, which are better known as the planets and comets. In the Greek, "planet" means "wanderer". It is thus clear that the wandering bodies move in the solar system, relatively close to Earth. 

     Their apparent location in the sky changes every moment as a result of their own movement in space and also as a result of the movement of Earth. Though the remaining bodies also appear to be static, as their movements are hardly perceptible because they are so far away from us, yet over time, their imperceptible movements can also be recorded by astronomers. Say, two thousand years ago some sky gazers or astronomers have recorded the exact position, for example, of the position of the Great Bears in the sky, and making comparison with their today's position, definitely a perceptible change can easily be noticed. Heavenly bodies like planets never follow a specific route, while taking their round the sun, their pattern of movement is different every year, though an astrologer/astronomer can easily predict their possible movement in heaven and apparent relative position of even ten thousand years in future without any effort or they can even find out what was their position in the background of other heavenly bodies say five thousand years ago. 

    Distances between bodies on the celestial sphere, like distances between points on any sphere, are measured in degrees. In the sky two stars may appear too close to each other, but in space they may be billions of light years apart. 

     What I am trying to arrive at is: the recording made by ancient astrologers about the places of planets in the sky at a particular point of time in some distant past is of immense value today.

    You might have noted the planetary positions in yourself or your children's horoscope, which, it is believed, is a prediction of the future events of the subject. The details are meticulous. It is difficult for any roadside astrologer to prepare any correct horoscope; one should possess a good knowledge of mathematics.

     According to Indian astrology there are nine heavenly bodies pretty close to us, which impact the dwellers of Earth: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, Pluto is no longer a planet as it does not fulfil the criteria of a planet, besides moon and sun. Uranus and Neptune are not visible to our naked eyes, but they do impact the movement of other close heavenly bodies, therefore, they were named by the ancient Indian astrologers as Rahu and Ketu. They had long calculated their existence, by the impact exerted on other planets relating to their movement. Don't think, planets move around the sun in a circle, no, they hobble, being impacted by the gravitational pull of the closer planets. This was how the Indian astronomers in the past calculated the existence of Uranus and Neptune in the heavens, and the pattern of their movement in the sky. 

    There are twelve zodiacal signs in the sky as per both the Indian and western astrology. In reality, they are the twelve constellations, and our earth's position is calculated in terms of these twelve constellations in a year, though their positions may vary every year however imperceptible they may seem to be. Two children born on the same date may find the earth in different locations in terms of planets and moon. The movement of the sun is never static; it moves to and fro in its own prefixed destinations like a pendulum, which obviously impact our body due to variations in its radiation like appearance of skin cancer. So the position of stars and planets a few seconds earlier may not be the same after a few seconds. One expert astrologer good at mathematics can easily calculate by studying the planetary signs at a given period of time of any man his exact age. Astrology is only a science of calculations, there is no superstitions, though people with half-baked knowledge of such subjects simply try to give it a bad name of superstitions, I call these people votary of western education, though they can be called at best ignorant and they have not come out their circle of limited knowledge. 

     Astrology is not only the favourite of Indians, the Greeks and Romans also did some astrological calculations, they also studied the planetary positions, otherwise how could they record planetary positions during the birth of Jesus. If you read the Valmiki Ramayana, you will be surprised to find the descriptions of planetary positions during the birth of Lord Ram, same thing you will get in the Bhagavad about the birth of Lord Krishna, now just think for a while how could Vasudev, his father, knew at what time the water in the River Jamuna would be in low tide, that was apparently done through astronomical calculations, and hence particular spot was found from where he could cross the river apparently walking in the minimal level of water.

    Now take up the case of the Red Sea, how Moses knew at what time there would ebb tide, and, he learnt this by making calculations of time and he identified a suitable place, where the Red Sea was broad with shallow depth. Even he judged beforehand how much time it would take for the Israelite to cross over the sea before it became flooded again. This is a historical event, and never repeated every year. While chasing the Israelite, when the Egyptian soldiers tried to cross over the Red Sea, it once again became flooded and drowned them. 

     If you study these events meticulously, then you can easily calculate the exact year of such a phenomenon. The book of Matthew in the Bible tells that when Jesus was born a bright star appeared in the eastern sky, and think scientifically, what was that bright star, it was actually the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, now think, in which century did that conjunction occur, and find out the exact date and time of the birth of Jesus Christ. 

        This phenomenon occurred in May, October and December of 7 B.C., in February 6 B.C. a third planet Mars, moved into the grouping and this made to appear the rise of a single bright star, though it consisted of three planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Therefore, the astronomers say, possibly Jesus was born sometime in April of 6 B.C., when this phenomenon occurred in the sky. 

       But please don't get confused with the celebration of Christmas, it has nothing to do with the birth date of Jesus, 25th December is the last day of winter, and from then on the season of Spring begins, so it is a day of celebration to mark the beginning of a new hope. In the southern hemisphere, Christmas is celebrated in mid-winter, which falls in June. 

     Now I am quoting from the Valmiki Ramayana, the birth date of Lord Ram: "On the ninth lunar day of Chaitra (according to lunar calendar) ... five planets (viz., the Sun, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus) happened to be exalted (appeared in zodiacal signs of Aries, Capricornus, Libra, Cancer, and Pisces respectively) and Jupiter in conjunction with Moon appeared in the zodiacal sign of Cancer, mother Kausalya (the eldest wife of Dasharatha) gave birth to a highly blessed son named Sri Rama..." (1:13), now settling down to find out the date and time of occurrence of this novel astronomical phenomenon it stands out: 12.05 PM of January 10, 5114 BCE. Likewise, if you consult the Mahabharata, of course in original, the astronomical phenomenon during the occurrence of the Mahabharata War, you will be surprised to find, the exact date appears as: October 13, 3139 BCE. By consulting the different texts of Indian mythology, and position of stars and planets at that time when Lord Krishna was born, one can easily arrive at a specific year that is 3228 BCE. 

     Now coming to the great event of Exodus, when the Red Sea parted making way for the Israelites to cross at the behest of Moses, its exact date is not mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, yet from the contemporary situations comparing it with the Egyptian chronology, it perhaps happened sometime in between 1200 and 1500 BCE, but when this event is connected to the name of the city Raamses, which the Israelites built before the Exodus, and also comparing with the contemporary phenomenal event of deflooding of the Red Sea, an exact year of 1134 BCE can be reached, however, to find out the exact date, it requires meticulous study of the contemporary geographical phenomenon to be sanguine. Anyway, read this line from the Exodus chapter of the Holy Bible: "Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided." (14:21). Please note in those days, there was no outlet in the Red Sea in the North, which joined it with the Mediterranean! 

     As lines on palms of two hands are never similar, so also is every planetary position, it is always unique. By meticulously studying the planetary positions in a given situation, one can easily arrive at an exact date and time of any particular historical event. 

    Not only in ancient times, but also in medieval India, it was a practice to write horoscopes of every new born king primarily studying the contemporary planetary positions. Every planetary position is unique in itself and never recurs twice, therefore, such descriptions of planetary positions can easily be analysed to know the exact year and time of any historical event, though it requires meticulous study and analysis, which is not possible without the thorough knowledge of mathematics.

     Based on the contemporary available records of planetary positions of the past events, we can easily verify the authenticity of every such historical incident. This is the only reliable and authentic way. As I tried to prove above only with a few examples, the names like the Ram, Krishna, Jesus, Moses, or the narratives like Exodus, the Mahabharata War etc. were either true historical figures or true events. Astrology, based on scientific astronomical calculations, is a great science, and needs further empirical study to make it more accessible to the common men or to make it more palatable to modern science. Whether or not we accept it, every planet and its specific position in the sky at a particular point of time will invariably impact our day to day life, though it requires further meticulous study. Astrology as a science was highly advanced in India once upon a time, but with the introduction of western education the study of this science has lost its lustre among the scholars, besides its study is not that easy, it is pure mathematics. I feel, those with fair knowledge in mathematics can make an attempt to study astrology once again to restore the lost glory of this great legacy of India's past before the modern world, which has been relegated into oblivion with passage of time and also due to fascination for western education. 

    What more, can you imagine today, most of the mystery science like numerology, palmistry, necromancy even hypnotism originated in India besides astrology? 

                                                                      (Email: drpkchhetri7@gmail.com)