Astronomy

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Astronomy and Astrology
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Astrology in its old sense means study of stars.
It had several socially relevant applications.
One was time reckoning.
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Both sun and stars move 1o westward in every 4
min. In all ancient civilizations, the priestly
class developed astrology, since they needed to
know exact time during night to perform various
religious rites.
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They identified suitable stars for every season
which rose in the evening and set in the morning.
They noticed that the stars rise everyday 4 min.
earlier than the previous day. They didnt
understand why. The geocentric world view they
held couldnt explain it.
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Now we understand that it is Earth that is
rotating about its own axis at the rate of 1o in
every 4 min., and also going round the sun about
1o in one day, causing a delay of 4 min. in
sunrise everyday.
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As civilizations developed, trade between distant
countries also developed. Since there were no
roads, they had to travel knowing the direction
of their destination.
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The Babylonians, had to cross deserts to go
anywhere outside their country. So they could
travel only during night. They found that certain
stars could tell the directions better than the
sun. No wonder Babylonians became the best
astronomers of ancient times
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Indians created beautiful myths, often as memory
aids, about Dhruva and is famous.
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Another wonderful development, was the idea of
Lunar constellations or birth stars. Moon goes
round Earth in 27 1/3 days, spending each day in
the company of a prominent star or a group of
stars. They identified 27 such Nakshatras each
having a space of 13 1/3o .
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The first Nakshatra or birth star is Aswini
(Aswathi), a group of 3 stars in the shape of
Aswamukha or horse head. If a child is born
when moon is near Aswini, its birth star is said
to be Aswini.
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The next day Moon will be in Bharani, Then it
will go to Kritika (Karthika), the seven sisters,
then to Rohini (the Hyades) in the shape of
letter V, and so on.
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27 1/3 Days is the length of a sidereal Lunar
month. The Nakshtras were very useful in counting
days, eg. if a child was born in Aswini and today
is Magha then evidently it is 10 days old. In
those days Indians had no 7 day week
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When agriculture and social activities developed,
all old civilizations felt the need for a good
calendar. Initially they developed the Lunar
calendars of 12 months. Length of months were
reckoned either from new moon to new moon or from
full moon to full moon
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Both have 29.53 days. So they took the length of
alternate months as 29 and 30
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Babylonians developed the solar calendar in
detail. They noticed that sun shifts its position
1o eastward everyday with respect to the
background stars
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It completes a full circle around Earth in 365
days. The circle is called the ecliptic. They
never thought that it is Earth that is going
round sun
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Initially Bablylonians divided the ecliptic into
36 decans of 10o each. Sun spends 10 days in each
decan and at the end of 36 decans 5 uncounted
days were introduced. Later they discarded the
decanal system and divided the ecliptic into 12
constellations of 30o each.
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The time that sun takes to cross one such
constellation is called a month. Months were
named after the constellations. Aries or Mesha is
in the shape of a sheep and when Sun is in Mesha,
the month also is known as Mesha. Similarly
Taurus (Rishabha or the bull), Gemini (Mithuna,
the twins), Karkita (Cancer, the crab) etc..
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Since the Moons path and Suns path are from
west to east, many stars are common to both. All
the 27 Nakshatras are included in the 12
constellations, so that each constellation has
21/4 Nakshathra. Moon spends one day and Sun
13-14 days in each Nakshathra.
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Babylonians were the first to distinguished
planets from stars. planets were wanderers. Sun
Moon and venus were planets they were called
Samash Sin and Ishtar, the three gods in
the sky who protected bel the Earthgod.
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When Jupiter was recognized as a planet, it was
named Marduk the founder god of Babylon city.
Similarly Mars became Nergel, the god of wars,
Saturn Ninurta the god of the underworld and
Mercury Nebu, the god of learning.
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Later generations began to worship planets
themselves as gods. When these ideas spread to
Greece, then the whole of Europe and to India,
they also gave names to planets taken from their
mythologies, but still their characters were kept
the same
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Thus Mars of Romans and Kuja of Indians are
warrier gods and hence maleficent. Similar is the
case of Saturn (Sani). Jupiter (Vyazha or
Brihaspathi) and Venus (Sukra) are beneficent
planets and so on.
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All the planets go through the zodiac and they
exhibited certain features which astonished
people. Most often they move from west to east,
but at times they stop moving and then reverse
their motion (the retrograde motion) and again
after some time regain the prograde motion
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Also their brightness, especially those of Venus
and Mars vary greatly
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They thought that planets have a will of their
own and their power also varies greatly. The
geocentric world view they held could not explain
these features and this may be one reason for
considering planets as supernatural beings
governing mans destiny
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Inspite of all these superstitions, the
Babylonain astrologers perfected an age reckoning
system by the 7th century B.C. They found that
all the seven planets (Indians added two more
later, the Rahu and Kethu, moved at different
speeds. So if their positions are known when a
particular event occurred) and now, the age of
the event could be calculated.
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The age of any event can be calculated if the
planetary positions at that time is known. The
Ascend ant or Lagna will indicate its exact time
also. It was for this purpose that the charts
were written in the beginning. (In those days,
the years were not numbered like in the Christian
era, the saka era etc)
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Predictive astrology was a later deviation which
began in Chaldia, a place close to the present
day Bagdad. The Chaldian priests purposely did it
to gain wealth and influence. First they said
that if a benevolent planet is rising in the east
at the time of a childs birth, it was good for
his future and if a maleficent planet is
setting, he is doomed, like that.
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Gradually, predictive astrology became more and
more complicated and it spread to other parts of
the world. History says that it was Barosus, a
chaldian priest and historian who started the
first school of astrology in Athens. Greaks made
their own contributions and made it more complex.
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It was mainly from Greace that astrology came to
India. Garga was the first astrologer to
introduce greek astrology in India, probably
during the second century B.C. through his famous
work the Garga samhita. (We had good astrology
books on Ganitha Jyothisha even earlier, eg the
Vedenga Jyothisha of Lagadhamuni, of about 10th
century B.C)
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The terms Garga used were all Greek terms with
slight changes eg Karkita for Karkinos, Leya
for Leo, Tauri for Taurus etc Parasara developed
it further. Varaha mihira of 6th century AD was
the greatest astrologer of India. But many of his
proposals are really foolish.
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Eg he says that at the time of conception, if
Lagna happens to be capriconus or Acqarius and if
Saturn is in the seventh Bhava (aspect), the
delivery will take place only after 3 years.
There are other strange combinations of planetary
positions which couse a women to deliver snakes
etc..
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Predictive astrology quickly became popular in
India, because it fitted well with the principle
of Karma and Rebirth. You are born a Sudra or
an outcast because of your own deeds in your
last birth. Those deeds determined your
birthchart also and there is no escape from Karma
and the planetary influences.
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The caste system and exploitation was this simply
explained on the basis of Karma and birth chart
and astrology provided the support of the heaven
for it and it still rules the Indian mind.
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The End