Acksblog

This is the strange title of Chapter XI of the ancient Hindu astronomy text known as the Surya Siddhanta.   Most aspects of this Sanskrit text are not understood by Indic scholars, but by far the most confounding is this entire chapter.  This is because it discusses priori-Mars (Mars still with its solid iron core, now called Mercury) in its orbit, only 44,400 km, from the Earth and repeated deadly convulsions within it caused by its alignments with the Sun and Moon combined. Alignments with the Moon were common, potentially every fourteen days when the Moon passed through its nodes, and probably transferred most of the material to the Earth, but these were not severe enough to cause great destructions.

The first five verses explain the terms for and the effects of different alignments of the sun and moon with priori-Mars:

1.  When the sun and moon are upon the same side of either solstice, and when, the sum of their longitudes  being a circle, they are of equal declination, it is styled vaidhrta.

2. When the moon and sun are upon opposite sides of either solstice, and their minutes of declinations are the same, it is vyatipata, the sum of their longitudes being a half-circle.

3. Owing to the mingling of the nets of their equal rays, the fire arising from the wrathfulness of their gaze, being driven on by the provector (Pravaha), is originated unto the calamity of mortals.

4. Since a fault (pata) at this time often causes the destruction of mortals, it is known as vyatipata, or by a different title, vaidhrti.

5. Being black, of frightful shape, bloody-eyed, big bellied, the source of misfortune to all, it is produced again and again.

At this point, the commentator interjects a page-long note, from which I have chosen just a few sentences, confessing that he cannot make any sense of the entire chapter.

” Of all the chapters in this treatise, this is the one which has the least interest and value.  It is styled patadhikara, “chapter of the patas”, and concerns itself with giving a description of the malignant [dangerous] times when the sun and moon have equal declinations, upon the same or opposite sides of the equator. … Why [this time] should be looked upon as so especially important is not easy to discover …  The form of the pata (‘fall’) which occurs when the sun and moon are equally removed from the equator upon the same side of it , in vyatipata, which may be rendered “very excessive sin or calamity … ”

This undoubtedly would express the incredulous view of any modern astronomer, none of which have any understanding of Cyclic Catastrophism and also leads to the misinterpretation of the original Sanskrit.  Fortunately the interpreter explains his problems with the critical terms, allowing us to better interpret their true physical meaning, in the context of Cyclic Catastrophism.

“The terms translated by us as “upon the same and upon the opposite sides of either solstice” are ekayanagata and viparitayanagata, literally situated in the same and in contrary ayanas”

I suggest that anagata acually meant the disc (mandala) of priori-Mars  as it orbited close to the earth and ayanas meant ‘quadrants’ of that disk.  It was quite large, at least 12,800 times the area of the full moon or 11.3 degrees in diameter, while both the sun and the moon both have angular diameters of half a degree, so when they passed behind it, their actual alignments could not be seen.  Because of the potential danger of massive meteorite falls, it was necessary to predict their exact alignments with respect to the center of planet [disk] priori-Mars,  the calculations for which are given in verses 7 through 15.  If the sun and moon were well separated when they passed behind the planet, the aspect was called vaidhrti, meaning the danger was ‘withheld’.  If close to one another and particularly close to the center of priori-Mars, there was a disastrous fall (vyatipata) of innumerable hot glowing rock bodies to the Earth due to the rapidly changing tidal forces.  These would cause convulsions deep inside the planet and massive glowing hot rocks would be ejected from volcanic vents in its northern hemisphere, which remained oriented toward the earth.

The relatively innocuous word pata (fall) described a rain of  hot glowing meteorites ejected from hundreds of volcanoes in Mars northern hemisphere which remained facing the Earth during each encounter and was a common occurrence in those times.  Because such falls are not observed today, the meaning never occurs  to modern day interpreters. Moreover vyatipata (terrible fall) makes even less sense.

Verse 5 describes the ominous appearance of the planet just before the explosive convulsions.  This was the aspect of the Vedic Rudra, and later Siva in the Hindu trimurti – Brahma (creator), Vishnu (sustainer)  and Siva (destroyer). Verses 12 through 15 explain how the Vedic priests calculated the times of the start, middle and end of these encounters.

17. While any parts of the disks of the Sun and moon have the same declination, so long is there a continuance  of this aspect (fall), causing the destruction of all works.

This means that if the sun and moon were moving along the same line, as viewed from the earth, while behind priori-Mars the fall will continue.  The commentator takes issue with the original interpretation of verse 17 by Burgess because he cannot understand what disk is being discussed.  He expresses this problem as  follows:

“We have translated verse 17 in strict accordance with the interpretation of it presented in the commentary, although we must acknowledge that we do not see how that interpretation is to be reconciled with the actual form of the text.  The term ekayanagata, which the commentator renders “having equal declination”, is the same with that which in the first verse signified “situated in the same ayana“. Mandala, although it is sometimes used with the meaning “disk” attributed to it by him, is the word employed in that same verse for a “circle’, or “degrees”; and antara, which he explains by ekadeca, “any part”. never, so far as we know, is properly used in that sense, while it is of frequent occurrence elsewhere in this treatise with the meaning “interval”.  The natural rendering of the line would seem to be “when there is between the sun and moon the interval of a circle, situated in the same ayana.”  This however yeilds no useful meaning, since such a description could only apply to an actual conjunction of the sun and moon.  We do not see how the difficulty is to be solved, unless it be allowed us …  to assume that the text has been tampered with in this verse, and made to furnish a different sense from that it originally had … .”

Actually, no one understands, unless they have read Firmament or my blog posts, that the disk, observed by one-hundred generations of ancient cultures, was a ‘world’ which remained stationary (geostationary) in the heavens above the earth.  This was the mandala (disk), also Indra (Vedas), Vishnu, Siva (Hindu), Ra, Horus (Egyptian), Baal pagan or Mesopotamian), Argo, Ares (Greek), Nergal (Assyrian) ,  etc.  Verses 19 and 20 provide further corroboration of the Cyclic Catastrophism scenario:

19 when the equality of the declination of the sun and moon takes place in the neighborhood of the equator, the aspect (pata or fall) may then again occur a second time: in the contrary case it may fail to occur.

20. If the sum of the longitudes of the sun and moon, in minutes, on being divided by the portion (bhoda) of an asterism (bha), yields a quotient between sixteen and seventeen, there is another, a third, vyatipata (disasterous fall).

Verse 19 means that if the near conjunction of the Sun and Moon occurs near the center of the north-south dimension of the disk of priori-Mars, 1.e. “the equator”, their alignment with the planet may occur on two consecutive days.  This is because priori-Mars revolved exactly with the Earth, in geostationary orbit, remaining stationary in the heavens, while the Moon revolved around the Earth with a period of 28 to 36 days in Vedic times.   On the first day of conjunction the Moon would be approaching the Sun while both passed behind priori-Mars and on the second day it could be slightly past the Sun but both again being behind the disk, because the disk was more than eleven degrees as viewed from the Earth, while the sun and moon both subtend half a degree.

Verse 20 essentially states that if the alignment of the two occurs exactly on the “equator” of priori-Mars it is possible for a disastrous fall to occur on three consequitive days – , (a) as the moon approaches the Sun, (b) when the two exactly coincide and (c) when the Moon is slightly past the Sun but the pair still behind the disk of the planet.  A simple calculation confirms that this is possible.  The exact (second) alignment in this case would correspond with a solar eclipse, but one which could not be viewed by the Aryans because priori-Mars was eclipsing the entire scene.  This explains the ancient’s fear of solar eclipses, which ‘modern’ science ridicules.  The consecutive convulsions could also have been more disastrous because of the opening of large volcanic vents on the previous days.

Another term derided by modern science are asterisms, the declination and ‘right ascension’ of which are given in another chapter of the Surya Siddhanta.  They assume that these are constellations of stars, and claim that the ancient positions were completely incorrect.  The asterisms were indeed patterns of bright lights, but the lights were flaming volcanoes in the northern hemisphere of priori-Mars.  Support  of this comes from another term used to describe these points of light in many ancient cultures – ‘circum-polar stars’. This term implies that priori-Mars’ rotation axis, i.e. its north pole, remained oriented toward the Earth when it orbited Earth.  Verse 21 also involves the asterisms:

21. Of the asterisms (dhishnya) Aclesha (sarpa), Jyeshtha (dindra), and Ravati (paushnya), the last quarters are junctions of the asterisms (bhasandhi); the first quarter in the asterisms following these respectively is called gandanta.

This implies that the severity of vyatipatas was also influenced by the position of certain asterisms relative to the path of the sun and moon behind the planet.  This differed from conjunction to conjunction because the period of priori-Mars’ rotation around its axis was different from its period of revolution around the Earth (exactly one day):

22. In all works, one must avoid the terrible trio of vyatipatas as also the trio of gandantas, and this trio of asterisms.

Modern civilization has no idea of the enormous forces and continual danger with which our ancient ancestors coped between 3700 and 700 BC.  How they ‘avoided’  the terrible vyatipatas is left to our imagination. Fortunately, their daily lives did not depend on the massive infrastructure we require today, so even after these monumental destructions occurred, they buried and mourned their dead and continued their lives.  The falls of innumerable hot meteorites of all sizes would essentially destroy modern cities and the corresponding eruptions of every volcano on the Earth, which this text does not even bother to mention would darken the sky for weeks or months.  The reorienting of the spin axis of the earth that occurred about every fifteen years would render all our satellites useless.  Along with them would go cell phones, GPS, the internet, and astronomical observations and agricultural disruptions.

The deaths of millions of our ancestors were the price paid for the rejuvenation of the entire Earth by the water, atmosphere, seeds and mineral deposits blasted to Earth from the formerly living priori-Mars by these same convulsions which produced a layer 50 km thick.  As yet, another great benefit has yet to be realized –  the understanding of the true cosmogony (origin), makeup and recent history of the planets, indeed the entire solar system.  This has been passed down in great detail by all ancient cultures in their texts, such as the Vedas and the Surya Siddhanta, but the arrogant, atheist academia continues to ignore the knowledge in Cyclic Catastrophism because it admits the possibility of a divine intervention in our world.

If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.         Cicero

~ by Angiras on April 7, 2012.

Posted in Anthropology, astronomy, Astrophysics, Bible, Hindu Mythology, mythology, paradigm shift, planetary science, Rig Veda, Sun
Tags: Surya Siddhanta