From Fri Apr 16 07:59:54 1999
Delivered-To: listsaver-of-agathiyar@egroups.com
Mailing-List: contact agathiyar-owner@egroups.com
X-Mailing-List: agathiyar@egroups.com
X-URL: http://www.egroups.com/list/agathiyar/
Reply-To: agathiyar@egroups.com
Delivered-To: listsaver-egroups-agathiyar@egroups.com
Received: (qmail 29237 invoked by uid 7770); 16 Apr 1999 14:59:40 -0000
Received: from ns.newbridge.com (192.75.23.67) by vault.egroups.com with SMTP; 16 Apr 1999 14:59:40 -0000
Received: (from smtpd@localhost) by ns.newbridge.com (8.8.8/8.6.12) id KAA11462 for agathiyar@egroups.com; Fri, 16 Apr 1999 10:59:39 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from portal1.newbridge.com(192.75.23.76) via SMTP by ns.newbridge.com, id smtpdAAAa11416; Fri Apr 16 10:59:24 1999
Received: from kanata-mh1.ca.newbridge.com by portal1.newbridge.com via smtpd (for ns.newbridge.com [192.75.23.67]) with SMTP; 16 Apr 1999 15:03:22 UT
Received: from nfsbrute.crosskeys.com by kanata-mh1.ca.newbridge.com; Fri, 16 Apr 1999 10:59:22 -0400
Received: from crosskeys.com by nfsbrute.crosskeys.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA06400; Fri, 16 Apr 1999 10:59:21 -0400
Sender: kandiahj@...
Message-Id: <37175013.C957858@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 10:58:27 -0400
From: "Kandiah Jey. 2LS NWW"
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4u)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: agathiyar@egroups.com
References: <005701be87e8$c6c34140$42d4bacd@...>
Subject: [agathiyar] Re: What happened on the day Kali Yuga began?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 278

Dear Manivannan,

May I ask you why you wrote about the community background of Rajeev
Srinivasan at your introduction about the author of the article? How
does his community background help us reading his article? I am just
curious about the habit of most of the indians to hint about the caste
of a person whenever reporting something about the person whether it is
god or bad. Why should we spread this to the other people who do not
have an idea about these caste issues. Fortunately, you did not mention
whether his community is an upper or a lower in the ranks.

Thanks,
Jeya.

Mani M. Manivannan wrote:
>
> Rajeev Srinivasan, a columnist for the Rediff
> began his writing career on the internet posting messages to
> the soc.culture.indian group. He is from Kerala, and I understand
> that he is from the Eezhava community and is acutely aware
> of the bitter struggle for equality waged by his community.
> He began as a left-wing liberal, gravitated towards neo-liberalism
> but now has become the poster child of "compassionate"
> conservatives of India.
>
> In a column for the Rediff web magazine, he speculates on the
> calendars, in particular the Indian calendar. This is the 52nd
> year of the Kali Yuga according to the Hindu calendar. So,
> what marked the beginning of the Kali Yuga? Let us hear
> the story from his own words. The complete, unedited article
> is at
>
> -Mani M. Manivannan
>
> Millennium Fuss
>
> In the midst of all the fuss about the new millennium in the Gregorian calendar, most of us missed another centenarian event: the beginning of the 52nd century of the Kali Yuga in the Hindu calendar, on March 18. This is Yugabda 5101. So why should anyone care? Indians or at least Hindus should care.
>
> However, the earliest known Hindu text is the Rg Veda, dated to about 1500 BCE. Thus the Hindu calendar should date back only about 3,500 years. Therefore, the business about the Kali Yuga and 5,000 years must be some convenient fiction made up by medieval Hindu scholars, right? This is certainly what we have been led to believe by the Macaulayite educational system in India.
>
> According to conventional wisdom, the Hindu texts that state that the Kali Yuga began in 3102 BCE, and that there was some spectacular celestial configuration of planets to mark that event, are merely fanciful mythical accounts. For after all, in 3102 BCE, Hindus were still far from writing the earliest Vedic texts -- and they were not a civilisation until around the 1500 BCE date of the Rg Veda.
>
> It turns out, however, that Hindu texts do fairly accurately describe historical celestial events -- for instance the singular planetary configuration that is supposed to have taken place in 3102 BCE to mark the beginning of the Kali Yuga did in fact take place. This leads to two possibilities: one, that the astronomical events were actually observed then; two, that someone, after the laws of astrophysics became known (say Newton's time) back-caculated and inserted them into texts.
>
> There is a problem with the first hypothesis: ancient Indians were not known to be astronomers, unlike, say the Chinese, who left detailed records of supernovae they observed, for instance in the Crab Nebula in 1054 CE. Second, if Indians were accurate astronomers 5,000 years ago, that presupposes an advanced civilisation by that time, which makes India the oldest of all known civilisations. This does not fit in with conventional wisdom.
>
> It turns out that Indian astronomy (and astrology) over the centuries has had an error in it: it does not take into account the precession of the axis of the earth as it rotates around the sun. This is the tendency of the axis itself not to be oriented in space in fixed fashion, but to describe a cone -- it spins like the axis of a top does.
>
> This error has accumulated over time. So for instance, Hindus celebrate the Winter Solstice on Makara Sankranti day, January 14th; however the real Winter Solstice is on December 22nd. Similarly, the Indian astrological months are offset by a couple of weeks from the real dates on which the sun enters those constellations.
>
> Therefore, if an Indian mathematician were to recognise this error in Indian astronomy, take it into account, correct it, and backtrack to 3102 BCE, it would take a prodigious amount of computing power, that was not available until the recent creation of supercomputers. Therefore, the second hypothesis is impossible -- it was not back-calculated. The event was in fact observed in 3102 BCE.
>
> We are left with the possibility then that Indian civilisation was already well-established in 3102 BCE. Which is interesting in and of itself. Furthermore, the Hindu calendar does speak in cosmic terms -- and it establishes the age of the universe as some 8.64 billion years, which fits in with modern, scientific cosmology (see Carl Sagan at http://www.rediff.com/news/jan/29sagan.htm).
>
> I understand that the Indian government has denoted this year of the Hindu calendar as the Year of Sanskrit. Maybe in some of those crumbling palm-leaf manuscripts rotting away unsung, unwept, and unhonored, there are other ancient treasures like the astronomical observations from 5,000 years ago.
>
> Rajeev Srinivasan
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> SPRING IS HERE - Wilson Sporting Goods! Jet Evolution Basketballs,
> NFL Autograph Football, Conform Pitcher, Outfielder Glove. Full
> Selection of golf clubs, skates, water sports, team sports equipment!
> http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/146
>
> eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/agathiyar
> Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/agathiyar
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com