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Dating the Era of Lord RAM
In the epic Ramayana, Sage Valmiki mentioned that when Lord Ram was born, the sun was located in Aries, saturn was in Libra, Jupiter & the moon were in Cancer, Venus was seen in Pisces while Mars was located in Capricorn. Moreover it was the ninth day of the increasing phase of the moon in the lunar month of Chaitra. The two slides on the cover of this book together display, with the help of a powerful software, that these unique astral condition swere present in the sky on 10 January 5114 B.C. This book employs the scientific advancement of the West to prove the antiquity of the East. The book also discovers the dates of a number of events of the life of Lord Ram byusing the Planetarium software.
172 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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September 27, 2021
What are the principal predicaments faced by a scholar while dating the Ramayana and Mahabharata?
Why is the job a difficult one?
Well, here are the main reasons:
1) The texts are syncretic and accretive;
2) The dates restructured by astronomy software cannot be taken as ultimate since we do not know whether the verse being dated was part the original core or if it was added later.
3) Additionally, we have dates that are sometimes reciprocally contradictory. The way a poetic description of an astral event in the verses is interpreted is prejudiced and it lacks scholarly agreement.
The author of this volume, with the exactitude of a detective has shown how in the absence of any documented history of our country for the period prior to about 300 BC, the antiquity and dating of the ancient Indian civilization has remained open to conjecture. The best evidence available with us, of the period of our 'glorious past' is the ancient sacred literature consisting of Vedas, epics, Upanishads etc.
The dating of ancient Indian history is, therefore, almost comparable to the dating of these scriptures. Indians claim this literature to be as old as the relic of any other civilization of the world.
However, in the absence of any concrete evidence in this regard, modern historians are not ready to accept such claims.
The accepted version of the ancient history of our civilization is based on the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) authored by the Max Muller. Propounded with the coloured hallucination of racial pre-eminence, the AIT states that the original inhabitants of our country were the people of Harappan civilization or Indus Valley Civilization.
Their script could not be deciphered so far, though lately it has been claimed to have been deciphered as later Vedic Sanskrit. The AIT states that in about 1500 BC, the northern part of India was invaded by a light-skinned race of nomadic people called Aryans, who descended from Central Asia and destroyed the inhabitants of Indus Valley Civilization.
The barbaric Aryans then imposed their language and culture on the people of Harappan civilization. This supposedly marked the beginning of the early Vedic era during which Vedic literature began getting composed.
The Rig Veda, being the earliest among all the Vedic compositions, was accordingly assigned the date of about 1500 BC. The other Vedas and the rest of the Vedic literature is normally believed to have been composed in the later Vedic period of about 1200 BC onwards without assigning any specific dates to the individual compilations.
Since the epics - the Ramayana and the Mahabharata cannot be classified stringently as Vedic literature, these are assigned indistinguishable time frames too. The one issue on which there is no dispute, however, is that the Ramayana is dated earlier than Mahabharata.
According to modern indologists, the most 'reasonable' date of the Mahabharata war is around 950 BC. This was proposed by Pargiter mainly to conform to Max Muller’s date for the composition of the Rig Veda as 1500 BC.
While the Mahabharata is dated around 950 BC, the Ramayana has not been assigned any specific date under the AIT. In regard to this epic, the only belief that exists is that it is dated earlier than the Mahabharata.
The logic extended is that while the Ramayana was a war between Aryans and non-Aryans, at a time when Aryans were trying to impose themselves over the non Aryans in this country, the Mahabharata was a war among Aryans who had already established their ascendancy over the entire country.
In this background, it is not surprising that many historians believe the Ramayana and Mahabharata to be conjured tales created by Brahmins.
Although lacking supporting scientific evidence, the Aryan Invasion Theory was accepted and promulgated for two primary reasons:
1) Since it provided an expedient justification for the British subjugation of India;
2) As it could reunite the ancient Indian literature and history with the Biblical creation dated around 4000 BC, as the historians of that time could not conceive of any region outside of Europe that could have created a high civilization, centuries before their own.
Lastly, the AIT theory created a further division between the people of India, in terms of north and south and helped in propagating the principle of divide and rule followed by the British.
The first and the most important point this book seeks to establish is that Maharishi Valmiki was a contemporary of Lord Ram. Valmiki's ashram was on the outskirts of the kingdom of Koshal. When Lord Ram proceeded to the forests, he went to Valmiki's ashram, met him and stayed there for some time.
Later on, as per the epic, Sita gave birth to her children in the ashram of Valmiki. Maharishi Valmiki had seen Lord Ram in flesh and blood.
This is not true for Goswami Tulsidas and that elucidates the difference in the content of the writings of these two authors. The description of Lord Ram in the Valmiki Ramayana is as real as could be of any prince with outstanding qualities-yet a human being. However, for Goswami Tulsidas, Lord Ram was God right from the beginning of the Ramcharitmanas.
The reason, according to this book, lies in the fact that Tulsidas was born thousands of years after Lord Ram and by that time Lord Ram was already worshipped as a god. Contrary to this situation, in the times of Maharishi Valmiki, Lord Ram was adored as a valiant prince and therefore, his description in the Valmiki Ramayana is completely lifelike and realistic.
Being a contemporary of Lord Ram, Maharishi Valmiki could leave an abundance of evidence in the shape of the description of planetary positions, as he was present to witness the same. However, such evidence is missing completely in the Ramcharitmanas for obvious reasons.
The ancient astronomers, sages and seers could perfectly classify all the planetary bodies and they had all-inclusive knowledge of their cyclical motion. Their fascination and lore for the astronomical bodies ensured that the planetary positions got recorded at several places whenever they composed any literature.
In the same fashion, Maharishi Valmiki has mentioned the position of stars and the planets, at various places in the Ramayana at the time of occurrence of certain specific events. For example, the position of all the visible planets is given for the time of the birth of Lord Ram. Thus, if we have the means to find out when precisely the planets were in those positions, we can find out the date and time of birth of Lord Ram.
Going forward, he describes that Lord Ram went to exile on his twenty-fifth birthday and simultaneously, tells the position of the planets in the sky.
Thus, there is again a likelihood of not only finding out the second date but also verifying the fact that after twenty-five years of the birth of Lord Ram, whether the planets were present in their described positions or not. Here lies the vital difference between Valmiki Ramayana and other ancient literature.
What makes the Valmiki Ramayana immensely important from the point of view of astronomical dating is the fact that this book contains a series of planetary references in a chronological manner beginning with the date of birth of Lord Ram. If we fix the date for the birth of Lord Ram, then the planetary position for all the following events should also tally. And if the entire progression tallies, then there is no need for any further proof or evidence to support the authenticity of the recording, antiquity of the events as well as the accuracy of the findings.
The Valmiki Ramayana makes it clear that King Dashrath had planned Lord Ram's accession to the throne of Ayodhya on the occasion of the latter's twenty-fifth birthday and as we all know, eventually, Ram went into exile that day itself.
Since Lord Ram was born on the navmi of Chaitra Shukla Paksh, he must have completed twenty-five years on the navmi of Chaitra Shukla Paksh and therefore he should have gone to exile, on that day only.
How do we know that Lord Ram had completed twenty-five years of age on the date of exile?
At 3/47/1-11, when Ravan approaches Sita with the intention of abducting her in the absence of Lord Ram and Lakshman, he asks her who she was and why was she staying in that forest. Sita replies that she was the wife of Lord Ram and after her marriage she had stayed in Ayodhya for twelve years.
She goes on to say that at the beginning of the thirteenth year, King Dashrath wanted to crown Prince Ram but at the insistence of Kekeyi (step-mother of Lord Ram), he was sent to exile. Here she mentions that, ‘At that time my husband was 25 years of age and 18 years were counted about my age’.
This unequivocal statement shows that when exiled, Lord Ram was twenty-five years of age. It also gives the deduction that at the time of marriage, Lord Ram was thirteen years old.
Part of the above statement was again confirmed at 5/33/16-17, when Hanuman meets Sita in Ashok-Vatika and asks her who she was and what she was doing there. Sita again replies that she was the wife of Ram and she had lived at Ayodhya for twelve years after marriage. She further states that at the beginning of the thirteenth year Ram had to proceed to the forests.
Further validation comes from a discussion between Ravan and Maarech, when Ravan was planning the abduction of Sita. At 3/38/1 -6, Maarech advises Ravan to avoid any conflict with Lord Ram and tells him that he had himself fought with Prince Ram at the time when the latter had gone to protect Vishwamitra's yagya just before Ram's marriage.
In this context, Maarech mentions that when Sage Vishwamitra requested King Dashrath to send Prince Ram with him, Dashrath responded by saying: ‘Ram is just twelve years old and does not even properly know the intricacies of war’. This statement makes it clear that when Ram went with Sage Vishwamitra to protect his yagya, he was twelve years old.
Subsequently, Lord Ram fought and defeated Maarech, Subahu and Taarka along with their army. After Vishwamitra completed his yagya, they all proceeded to the kingdom of King Janak where Prince Ram married Sita.
Thus, one can see the coherence among all the statements discussed above to show that at the age of twelve he went to protect the yagya of Sage Vishwamitra, got married at the age of thirteen and after staying for another twelve years at Ayodhya, at the age of twenty-five he had to proceed to the forests at the insistence of his step-mother, Kekeyi.
But how do we know that it was his birthday on that day?
For this, a few more statements would need to be looked at:
a) Firstly, it was the month of Chaitra. This is mentioned at 2/3/4 when King Dashrath decides to give the crown to Lord Ram and says, ‘This month of Chaitra is beautiful and holy. The woods and trees are full of flowers. At this time coronation of Ram is most appropriate’.
b) Since Prince Ram was born in the month of Chaitra and had already completed twenty-four years before, the obvious implication is that he was nearing his twenty-fifth birthday at that time.
This book uses the most avant-garde, yet most scientific method to fix the dates for the lifetime of Lord Ram by picking up the unequivocal and unmistakable evidences available in the Ramayana written by his contemporary Maharishi Valmiki.
Like any archaeological discovery, the eternal existence and cyclical movement of the astronomical bodies in the sky is a matter of factual existence. Their movements have been unswerving, unchanging and consistent for millions of years.
Such systematic and consistent cyclical movements permit us to ascertain when exactly any particular planetary configuration was in existence in history.
The biggest hesitation in accepting the dates found on the basis of astronomical dating, so far, was the inaccuracy involved in manually computing the positions of the planets in the historical past. The inaccuracy was inevitable because of the highly complex nature of calculations involved in the process and thus, the dates worked out remained somewhat speculative in nature.
However, the advancement of computer technology of the recent past has not only made it possible, but also very convenient, to make such intricate and complicated computations by merely pressing a key on the keyboard.
This book uses one of the latest computer software, developed in the western world, which can produce the sky view on the desktop for any given date and time in the history of man. This software is used to find the date and time of the occurrence of those planetary configurations, which are recorded by Valmiki to have occurred at the time of happening of certain specific events during the life of Lord Ram.
The most important asset of the entire study is the impartiality of the investigation and the results. Since the text of Valmiki Ramayana is effortlessly available and the computer software is also obtainable freely, at least in the western countries, the manipulation of any of these two independent objects is just not possible.
The results of the study indicated in this book are startling. Leave aside the series of planetary configurations that tally exactly the way they are described in the Ramayana, the most amazing finding is the tallying of three eclipses - two solar eclipses and one lunar eclipse that Sage Valmiki has stated to have occurred within a span of just eleven months during the thirteenth and fourteenth year of the exile period of Lord Ram.
The book demonstrates that all the eclipses had actually taken place, precisely on the days specified in the Ramayana. Not only the eclipses per se, have their timings in terms of the part of the day also matches with the descriptions.
In an extraordinary finding, the sky view generated by the software shows that during the occurrence of the first solar eclipse, even the positions of seven visible planets tally exactly with their description in the book. In unequivocal terms, it can be mentioned that reverse calculations of such eclipses is impossible, even by the scientists of today, without the help of computers, particularly when the period involved is about 7,000 years old.
Thus, the only inference one can draw is that someone was actually present to witness the actual happening of these events (eclipses, and the planetary configurations) and these got recorded in the story of Lord Ram. Such confirmations independently demonstrate the authenticity of the recorded observations, antiquity of those events and accuracy of the findings of this study.
It would be apposite to reiterate that numerous evidences from archaeology and literary sources are now available to prove that the AIT was just fiction without any sound basis. Contemporary researchers like Professor Subhash Kak, Dr. B.G. Siddharth, Dr. S.B. Roy, Shri B.B. Lal, and Dr. David Frawley have made rich contributions to scientifically disprove the AIT.
The latest archaeological findings show that the Vedic culture developed in the Sapta - Sindhu region or the Indus -Saraswati region and the cultural tradition can be traced back to about 8000 BC without any break. The existence of the cultural continuity ever since that time dismisses the very basis of invasion by any tribe from outside the country.
Further, the findings of Kenneth Kennedy of Cornell University suggest that there is no evidence of any demographic discontinuity during 4500 BC to 800 BC. Thus, one can conclude that there was no significant influx of people into this country during the mentioned period.
This fact also gets corroborated from the reading of Vedic texts in which there is no memory of Aryans moving in this country from an outside or alien place. In addition to the above, there are certain planetary references in the Rig Veda that have been astronomically dated to at least 6500 BC. These findings prove the existence of history and culture of our civilization several millennia prior to the dates assigned to it under AIT.
Whatever be the conclusions, this study demonstrates, undisputedly, the incomparability of astronomical dating over all other methods of dating history in terms of preciseness, exactitude and objectivity.
What do we learn from this book the? What are the conclusions? We discover the following:
1) If the planetary arrangement is comprehensive and explicit, it will refer to one and only one date as seen in case of ascertaining the date of birth of Lord Ram.
2) Given the vast resource of ancient literature we possess, the methods of dating employed in this book should offer large opportunities of dating more such scriptures.
3) The history of ancient India is shrouded in darkness. The veil of the darkness can be lifted only if we are able to date our sacred Vedic literature accurately and also convince modern historians of such dating.
4) Not every book on the shelf offers an opportunity, such as provided by the Ramayana, to determine the precise dates of the era of Lord Ram. The efforts made, so far, to ascertain the precise dates for major epochs of the history of Indian civilization have produced certain results but the gaps among them were too large to show any notable coherence in such results. One of the main reasons, in this regard, was that the dating of the era of Lord Ram was not arrived at, in a convincing manner, till now.
4) Considering the findings of this book, along with the outcome of other research works, one can now observe a faint but firm timeline for the ancient history of our country.
5) The archaeological substantiation suggesting the dating of the Saraswati Sindhu region sites up to 8000 BC, astronomical dating of some of the verses of the Rig Veda to 6500 BC, the astronomical dating of Ramayana at around 5100 BC, date of composition of the last Mandal (book) of the Rig Veda around 5000 BC, strong evidences suggesting the traditional date of 3137 BC (or 3136 BC) as the date of Mahabharata, probable dating of composition of Purans well after the beginning of the Kali yuga (3100 BC) and the drying up of the Saraswati river around 1900 BC, makes a highly agreeable and logically acceptable timeline of our civilization.
6) The astronomical dating arrived at in this study may serve as a pivotal date in the reconstruction of this timeline of ancient India as and when more evidences are unearthed and many more dates of the historical events are discovered in the due course.
Fascinating to say the least! Grab a copy if you choose.
Why is the job a difficult one?
Well, here are the main reasons:
1) The texts are syncretic and accretive;
2) The dates restructured by astronomy software cannot be taken as ultimate since we do not know whether the verse being dated was part the original core or if it was added later.
3) Additionally, we have dates that are sometimes reciprocally contradictory. The way a poetic description of an astral event in the verses is interpreted is prejudiced and it lacks scholarly agreement.
The author of this volume, with the exactitude of a detective has shown how in the absence of any documented history of our country for the period prior to about 300 BC, the antiquity and dating of the ancient Indian civilization has remained open to conjecture. The best evidence available with us, of the period of our 'glorious past' is the ancient sacred literature consisting of Vedas, epics, Upanishads etc.
The dating of ancient Indian history is, therefore, almost comparable to the dating of these scriptures. Indians claim this literature to be as old as the relic of any other civilization of the world.
However, in the absence of any concrete evidence in this regard, modern historians are not ready to accept such claims.
The accepted version of the ancient history of our civilization is based on the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) authored by the Max Muller. Propounded with the coloured hallucination of racial pre-eminence, the AIT states that the original inhabitants of our country were the people of Harappan civilization or Indus Valley Civilization.
Their script could not be deciphered so far, though lately it has been claimed to have been deciphered as later Vedic Sanskrit. The AIT states that in about 1500 BC, the northern part of India was invaded by a light-skinned race of nomadic people called Aryans, who descended from Central Asia and destroyed the inhabitants of Indus Valley Civilization.
The barbaric Aryans then imposed their language and culture on the people of Harappan civilization. This supposedly marked the beginning of the early Vedic era during which Vedic literature began getting composed.
The Rig Veda, being the earliest among all the Vedic compositions, was accordingly assigned the date of about 1500 BC. The other Vedas and the rest of the Vedic literature is normally believed to have been composed in the later Vedic period of about 1200 BC onwards without assigning any specific dates to the individual compilations.
Since the epics - the Ramayana and the Mahabharata cannot be classified stringently as Vedic literature, these are assigned indistinguishable time frames too. The one issue on which there is no dispute, however, is that the Ramayana is dated earlier than Mahabharata.
According to modern indologists, the most 'reasonable' date of the Mahabharata war is around 950 BC. This was proposed by Pargiter mainly to conform to Max Muller’s date for the composition of the Rig Veda as 1500 BC.
While the Mahabharata is dated around 950 BC, the Ramayana has not been assigned any specific date under the AIT. In regard to this epic, the only belief that exists is that it is dated earlier than the Mahabharata.
The logic extended is that while the Ramayana was a war between Aryans and non-Aryans, at a time when Aryans were trying to impose themselves over the non Aryans in this country, the Mahabharata was a war among Aryans who had already established their ascendancy over the entire country.
In this background, it is not surprising that many historians believe the Ramayana and Mahabharata to be conjured tales created by Brahmins.
Although lacking supporting scientific evidence, the Aryan Invasion Theory was accepted and promulgated for two primary reasons:
1) Since it provided an expedient justification for the British subjugation of India;
2) As it could reunite the ancient Indian literature and history with the Biblical creation dated around 4000 BC, as the historians of that time could not conceive of any region outside of Europe that could have created a high civilization, centuries before their own.
Lastly, the AIT theory created a further division between the people of India, in terms of north and south and helped in propagating the principle of divide and rule followed by the British.
The first and the most important point this book seeks to establish is that Maharishi Valmiki was a contemporary of Lord Ram. Valmiki's ashram was on the outskirts of the kingdom of Koshal. When Lord Ram proceeded to the forests, he went to Valmiki's ashram, met him and stayed there for some time.
Later on, as per the epic, Sita gave birth to her children in the ashram of Valmiki. Maharishi Valmiki had seen Lord Ram in flesh and blood.
This is not true for Goswami Tulsidas and that elucidates the difference in the content of the writings of these two authors. The description of Lord Ram in the Valmiki Ramayana is as real as could be of any prince with outstanding qualities-yet a human being. However, for Goswami Tulsidas, Lord Ram was God right from the beginning of the Ramcharitmanas.
The reason, according to this book, lies in the fact that Tulsidas was born thousands of years after Lord Ram and by that time Lord Ram was already worshipped as a god. Contrary to this situation, in the times of Maharishi Valmiki, Lord Ram was adored as a valiant prince and therefore, his description in the Valmiki Ramayana is completely lifelike and realistic.
Being a contemporary of Lord Ram, Maharishi Valmiki could leave an abundance of evidence in the shape of the description of planetary positions, as he was present to witness the same. However, such evidence is missing completely in the Ramcharitmanas for obvious reasons.
The ancient astronomers, sages and seers could perfectly classify all the planetary bodies and they had all-inclusive knowledge of their cyclical motion. Their fascination and lore for the astronomical bodies ensured that the planetary positions got recorded at several places whenever they composed any literature.
In the same fashion, Maharishi Valmiki has mentioned the position of stars and the planets, at various places in the Ramayana at the time of occurrence of certain specific events. For example, the position of all the visible planets is given for the time of the birth of Lord Ram. Thus, if we have the means to find out when precisely the planets were in those positions, we can find out the date and time of birth of Lord Ram.
Going forward, he describes that Lord Ram went to exile on his twenty-fifth birthday and simultaneously, tells the position of the planets in the sky.
Thus, there is again a likelihood of not only finding out the second date but also verifying the fact that after twenty-five years of the birth of Lord Ram, whether the planets were present in their described positions or not. Here lies the vital difference between Valmiki Ramayana and other ancient literature.
What makes the Valmiki Ramayana immensely important from the point of view of astronomical dating is the fact that this book contains a series of planetary references in a chronological manner beginning with the date of birth of Lord Ram. If we fix the date for the birth of Lord Ram, then the planetary position for all the following events should also tally. And if the entire progression tallies, then there is no need for any further proof or evidence to support the authenticity of the recording, antiquity of the events as well as the accuracy of the findings.
The Valmiki Ramayana makes it clear that King Dashrath had planned Lord Ram's accession to the throne of Ayodhya on the occasion of the latter's twenty-fifth birthday and as we all know, eventually, Ram went into exile that day itself.
Since Lord Ram was born on the navmi of Chaitra Shukla Paksh, he must have completed twenty-five years on the navmi of Chaitra Shukla Paksh and therefore he should have gone to exile, on that day only.
How do we know that Lord Ram had completed twenty-five years of age on the date of exile?
At 3/47/1-11, when Ravan approaches Sita with the intention of abducting her in the absence of Lord Ram and Lakshman, he asks her who she was and why was she staying in that forest. Sita replies that she was the wife of Lord Ram and after her marriage she had stayed in Ayodhya for twelve years.
She goes on to say that at the beginning of the thirteenth year, King Dashrath wanted to crown Prince Ram but at the insistence of Kekeyi (step-mother of Lord Ram), he was sent to exile. Here she mentions that, ‘At that time my husband was 25 years of age and 18 years were counted about my age’.
This unequivocal statement shows that when exiled, Lord Ram was twenty-five years of age. It also gives the deduction that at the time of marriage, Lord Ram was thirteen years old.
Part of the above statement was again confirmed at 5/33/16-17, when Hanuman meets Sita in Ashok-Vatika and asks her who she was and what she was doing there. Sita again replies that she was the wife of Ram and she had lived at Ayodhya for twelve years after marriage. She further states that at the beginning of the thirteenth year Ram had to proceed to the forests.
Further validation comes from a discussion between Ravan and Maarech, when Ravan was planning the abduction of Sita. At 3/38/1 -6, Maarech advises Ravan to avoid any conflict with Lord Ram and tells him that he had himself fought with Prince Ram at the time when the latter had gone to protect Vishwamitra's yagya just before Ram's marriage.
In this context, Maarech mentions that when Sage Vishwamitra requested King Dashrath to send Prince Ram with him, Dashrath responded by saying: ‘Ram is just twelve years old and does not even properly know the intricacies of war’. This statement makes it clear that when Ram went with Sage Vishwamitra to protect his yagya, he was twelve years old.
Subsequently, Lord Ram fought and defeated Maarech, Subahu and Taarka along with their army. After Vishwamitra completed his yagya, they all proceeded to the kingdom of King Janak where Prince Ram married Sita.
Thus, one can see the coherence among all the statements discussed above to show that at the age of twelve he went to protect the yagya of Sage Vishwamitra, got married at the age of thirteen and after staying for another twelve years at Ayodhya, at the age of twenty-five he had to proceed to the forests at the insistence of his step-mother, Kekeyi.
But how do we know that it was his birthday on that day?
For this, a few more statements would need to be looked at:
a) Firstly, it was the month of Chaitra. This is mentioned at 2/3/4 when King Dashrath decides to give the crown to Lord Ram and says, ‘This month of Chaitra is beautiful and holy. The woods and trees are full of flowers. At this time coronation of Ram is most appropriate’.
b) Since Prince Ram was born in the month of Chaitra and had already completed twenty-four years before, the obvious implication is that he was nearing his twenty-fifth birthday at that time.
This book uses the most avant-garde, yet most scientific method to fix the dates for the lifetime of Lord Ram by picking up the unequivocal and unmistakable evidences available in the Ramayana written by his contemporary Maharishi Valmiki.
Like any archaeological discovery, the eternal existence and cyclical movement of the astronomical bodies in the sky is a matter of factual existence. Their movements have been unswerving, unchanging and consistent for millions of years.
Such systematic and consistent cyclical movements permit us to ascertain when exactly any particular planetary configuration was in existence in history.
The biggest hesitation in accepting the dates found on the basis of astronomical dating, so far, was the inaccuracy involved in manually computing the positions of the planets in the historical past. The inaccuracy was inevitable because of the highly complex nature of calculations involved in the process and thus, the dates worked out remained somewhat speculative in nature.
However, the advancement of computer technology of the recent past has not only made it possible, but also very convenient, to make such intricate and complicated computations by merely pressing a key on the keyboard.
This book uses one of the latest computer software, developed in the western world, which can produce the sky view on the desktop for any given date and time in the history of man. This software is used to find the date and time of the occurrence of those planetary configurations, which are recorded by Valmiki to have occurred at the time of happening of certain specific events during the life of Lord Ram.
The most important asset of the entire study is the impartiality of the investigation and the results. Since the text of Valmiki Ramayana is effortlessly available and the computer software is also obtainable freely, at least in the western countries, the manipulation of any of these two independent objects is just not possible.
The results of the study indicated in this book are startling. Leave aside the series of planetary configurations that tally exactly the way they are described in the Ramayana, the most amazing finding is the tallying of three eclipses - two solar eclipses and one lunar eclipse that Sage Valmiki has stated to have occurred within a span of just eleven months during the thirteenth and fourteenth year of the exile period of Lord Ram.
The book demonstrates that all the eclipses had actually taken place, precisely on the days specified in the Ramayana. Not only the eclipses per se, have their timings in terms of the part of the day also matches with the descriptions.
In an extraordinary finding, the sky view generated by the software shows that during the occurrence of the first solar eclipse, even the positions of seven visible planets tally exactly with their description in the book. In unequivocal terms, it can be mentioned that reverse calculations of such eclipses is impossible, even by the scientists of today, without the help of computers, particularly when the period involved is about 7,000 years old.
Thus, the only inference one can draw is that someone was actually present to witness the actual happening of these events (eclipses, and the planetary configurations) and these got recorded in the story of Lord Ram. Such confirmations independently demonstrate the authenticity of the recorded observations, antiquity of those events and accuracy of the findings of this study.
It would be apposite to reiterate that numerous evidences from archaeology and literary sources are now available to prove that the AIT was just fiction without any sound basis. Contemporary researchers like Professor Subhash Kak, Dr. B.G. Siddharth, Dr. S.B. Roy, Shri B.B. Lal, and Dr. David Frawley have made rich contributions to scientifically disprove the AIT.
The latest archaeological findings show that the Vedic culture developed in the Sapta - Sindhu region or the Indus -Saraswati region and the cultural tradition can be traced back to about 8000 BC without any break. The existence of the cultural continuity ever since that time dismisses the very basis of invasion by any tribe from outside the country.
Further, the findings of Kenneth Kennedy of Cornell University suggest that there is no evidence of any demographic discontinuity during 4500 BC to 800 BC. Thus, one can conclude that there was no significant influx of people into this country during the mentioned period.
This fact also gets corroborated from the reading of Vedic texts in which there is no memory of Aryans moving in this country from an outside or alien place. In addition to the above, there are certain planetary references in the Rig Veda that have been astronomically dated to at least 6500 BC. These findings prove the existence of history and culture of our civilization several millennia prior to the dates assigned to it under AIT.
Whatever be the conclusions, this study demonstrates, undisputedly, the incomparability of astronomical dating over all other methods of dating history in terms of preciseness, exactitude and objectivity.
What do we learn from this book the? What are the conclusions? We discover the following:
1) If the planetary arrangement is comprehensive and explicit, it will refer to one and only one date as seen in case of ascertaining the date of birth of Lord Ram.
2) Given the vast resource of ancient literature we possess, the methods of dating employed in this book should offer large opportunities of dating more such scriptures.
3) The history of ancient India is shrouded in darkness. The veil of the darkness can be lifted only if we are able to date our sacred Vedic literature accurately and also convince modern historians of such dating.
4) Not every book on the shelf offers an opportunity, such as provided by the Ramayana, to determine the precise dates of the era of Lord Ram. The efforts made, so far, to ascertain the precise dates for major epochs of the history of Indian civilization have produced certain results but the gaps among them were too large to show any notable coherence in such results. One of the main reasons, in this regard, was that the dating of the era of Lord Ram was not arrived at, in a convincing manner, till now.
4) Considering the findings of this book, along with the outcome of other research works, one can now observe a faint but firm timeline for the ancient history of our country.
5) The archaeological substantiation suggesting the dating of the Saraswati Sindhu region sites up to 8000 BC, astronomical dating of some of the verses of the Rig Veda to 6500 BC, the astronomical dating of Ramayana at around 5100 BC, date of composition of the last Mandal (book) of the Rig Veda around 5000 BC, strong evidences suggesting the traditional date of 3137 BC (or 3136 BC) as the date of Mahabharata, probable dating of composition of Purans well after the beginning of the Kali yuga (3100 BC) and the drying up of the Saraswati river around 1900 BC, makes a highly agreeable and logically acceptable timeline of our civilization.
6) The astronomical dating arrived at in this study may serve as a pivotal date in the reconstruction of this timeline of ancient India as and when more evidences are unearthed and many more dates of the historical events are discovered in the due course.
Fascinating to say the least! Grab a copy if you choose.
August 7, 2021
A promising title, but without giving details on the software and other mechanics, the content remains heresay. Another example of amateur, well-meaning authors who omit data-driven research.
February 12, 2023
Amazing eye opening must read
Little to no work has been done so far like Mr. Bhatnagar. Until further evidences support it, this is arguably the best dating of proud Indian history. Who are western historians to Comment and re-write our history?
Little to no work has been done so far like Mr. Bhatnagar. Until further evidences support it, this is arguably the best dating of proud Indian history. Who are western historians to Comment and re-write our history?
June 2, 2019
Book about astronomy
December 30, 2022
Hallelujah!
October 8, 2014
Excellent analysis has gone into dating the ramayana era. Must read for fans of the genre'.
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