Arsha Astronomy! ☀️🪐⭐⛈️

Arsha Astronomy

The word 'Jyotish' is often misunderstood as an exclusive fortune-telling branch. But in its true sense, fortune-telling forms a small part of this ancient branch of knowledge. Jyotish in Vedic context formed an important part of Vedic Literature and is considered as one of the six Vedangas (limb of Vedas) thus was attributed as the 'Eyes' of Vedas. It was imperative to understand these six Vedangas to delve deeper into Vedas. Out of the many sub- components included in Jyotish, Astronomy ( Siddhant) formed one of the most significant one.

The influence of celestial entities on various dimensions of human life was known to Vedic people since time immemorial. Movements of Sun, Moon, Stars and other entities played a very important role in the Vedic tradition. Even a superficial study of Vedic Literature points at knowledge of Solar year, Lunar year, constellations, eclipses etc existing in that era.

The Nidan sutra and Latyayan Srautasutra text of Samaveda have clear references to Solar and Lunar years of 360 days and 324/351 days respectively depending on the method of calculation. Due to the difference in the number of days in the Solar and Lunar calenders, an additional month was considered every 3rd year to bring uniformity in both the calendars and prevent widening of gap between both the calenders.This arrangement today is called as the Purushottam month or the Adhik month. As a result, we usually observe that Indian festivals usually fall around the same time in the modern Gregorian calender.

Aitreya Brahman and Kaushtiki Brahaman have clear indication of knowledge of winter and summer solstice and it was used extensively to decide timings of longer sacrifices. The year was divided into two halves of 6 months each; longer sacrifices (Mahavrata) were performed in winter-half while Vishuvat was observed in summer-half. Vedanga Jyotish also records the location of these solstices to be middle of Ashlesha constellation and Dhanistha constellation respectively, which coincides with the time period of that era.

Vedanga Jyotish had also calculated the duration of the day in both the solstices. The shortest day in winter-half is of 12 muhurats and in summer-solstice the longest day is of 18 muhurats ( Muhurat is a unit of Vedic time measurement which is equivalent to 48 minutes approximately).

Astronomy has always been an integral part of Indic tradition. It was not only highly instrumental in professions like agriculture and animal-husbandry but it also played a major role in determining the influence of these celestial bodies on one's day to day activities.


Dr. Karan Mittal
MBBS, MA(PSYCHOLOGY) , MA (SANSKRIT)