Religion

The day of Makar Sankranti will be celebrated in India on 15th January 2015. As in Bangalore, Sun enters Capricorn, i.e. Makar rashi on January 14th, 2015 at 18:57 hours. However, on 14th, sunset is indicated to be 18:07 hours, which is before the astronomical event and hence the festival will be celebrated on 15th January. On this day, Sun is also called Uttarayan, i.e., beginning its northward journey. This day is very important in Hindu mythology.

A sankranti is an astronomical event of Sun entering any sign in Niryana system. Every month, there is one Sankranti, e.g. just now we had Dhanu Sankranti, when Sun entered Sagittarius. Not all of these Sankrantis are celebrated as festivals. Two other sankranti’s are important – Mesha sankranti, when Sun enters its exaltation sign and Karka Sanktranti, where Sun is Dakshinayan, i.e., Sun is in its southward journey.

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There was a program going on on Zee News just now that was talking about the dates from Ramayana. Valmiki records the birth of Rama as Chaitra Shuddha Navami (9th), on Punarvasu Nakshatra and five plants were exalted then; Sun in Mesha upto 10 deg., Mars in Capricorn at 28 deg., Jupiter in Cancer at 5 deg., Venus in Pisces at 27 deg. and Saturn in Libra at 20 deg. (Bala Kanda.18/Shloka 8,9). The date mentioned in this website for the date of birth of Rama matches with the program – i.e. 10th January 5114 BC. The planetary positions are mentioned and can be looked at here. http://www.historicalrama.com/rama-navami.gif. I put these dates in JHora software, which also claims to use the state of the art ephemeris and an accuracy range of –5400 to 5400 years. Between the two softwares, the main difference is the position of Saturn. The JHora software shows Saturn in Scorpio by couple of degrees. Moon is also shown in Pushya nakshatra in the labha, while Rama was said to be born in Punarvasu nakshatra with Moon in Lagna. Thus, the dates don’t match as such.

The program also mentioned the date of Dussehra to be 4th December 5076 BC, but the date has a major issue that it falls in Phalgun month. The guests on the program mentioned that the research on this this still in progress. Another site on the web http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/ramayan/rama_vartak.html also mentions that Ravana was killed in the month of Phalgun. Have all of us Hindus been celebrating Dussehra & Diwali on wrong dates?

Saw this interesting post in newspapers today – Bangalore Body Fake. It says:

They had miserably failed to prove the legal existence of Iskcon, Bangalore as an independent autonomous body, it said… It had fabricated documents and was falsely claiming its right over the properties. There was no evidence on record to show that the properties were built by Iskcon, Bangalore.

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