Nilesh Nilkanth Oak - When Did The Mahabharata War Happen?: The Mystery of Arundhati

When Did The

Mahabharata War

Happen?

The Mystery of Arundhati

Nilesh Nilkanth Oak

Danphe, USA

2011 by Nilesh Nilkanth Oak

All rights reserved.

Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0983034407

ISBN-10: 0983034400

E-Book ISBN: 978-1-4392-8348-6

Printed in the United States of America

To ,

Rupa

Acknowledgements

To Mangesh Murdeshwar, for discussions on wide ranging subjects and for introducing me to works of P V Vartak; Shashikant B Potdar for introducing me to celestial couple, Arundhati and Vasistha; Narahari Achar, for his paper On the identification of the Vedic nakshatras and for introducing me to works of P V Kane; K. Chandra Hari, for providing multiple papers on Rohini-Shakat Bheda , which in turn removed one of the many roadblocks in my work; and Aravind Kanho Kulkarni, for his help in procuring books of P V Vartak.

To Dave Rich, for exciting and all encompassing discussions on philosophy, science, astronomy and finance, and for indirectly rejuvenating my interest in Mahabharata astronomy and works of Karl Popper; Jeremiah Smedra, for introducing me to Idea mapping, which was so critical in keeping my thoughts together while writing this book; Deepa Pawate, for suggesting a title for this book The stars were aligned, which is preserved in a modified form as title for one of the chapters - The planets were aligned; Eugene Milone (and his graduate students), for educating me on basics of astronomy measurements; Tim DeBenedictis of Carina Software, for his professional assistance and helpful suggestions; Pranisha Shrestha for her assistance with Figures 1 and 2.

I am indebted to all past and current Mahabharata researchers (Table 1) for their works. Their theories and proposals provided me opportunities to test their proposed year(s) of the Mahabharata War and to analyze their theories. Their works provided me numerous insights and made my job easier.

The views represented in this book are my own and not necessarily of those who have been kind to me, directly and indirectly in this endeavor. Paramatma inspired me and sustained my faith in the words of Vyasa. Poppers specific approach to falsification and corroboration of a theory allowed me to interpret words of Vyasa. There is very little of mine in it.

Contents

If you cannot in the long run tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing has been worthless .

Erwin Schrodinger

Fifteen years ago, I stumbled on Arundhati 1 observation, recorded in Bhishma Parva of Mahabharata. I liked this observation for two reasons. The observation had very high improbability associated with it. The only rational I could imagine on the part of Mahabharata author, to include such an improbable observation, was due to this being a factual observation at the time of Mahabharata War. If I could somehow test it, the observation held the key to falsification of astronomical observations within the Mahabharata text. I could comprehend this observation, unlike numerous other astronomical observations within Mahabharata. I wanted to convince myself of the authenticity (or absurdity) of astronomical observations from the Mahabharata text, and Arundhati observation was the most suitable for my purpose and abilities.

Around this time, I also stumbled on the writings of Vinoba Bhave, Joseph Campbell and Karl Popper. While Vinoba Bhave and Joseph Campbell influenced me most with their lives and their writings, this book has benefited immensely from works of Karl Popper. All three of them, through their writings, offered me the experience of Tesham swaira kathalapa upadeshani bhavanti. I had read books of Karl Popper as early as 1993 A.D. and enjoyed them thoroughly. Even then, I did not appreciate the efficacy of his methods until I began testing statements, astronomical or otherwise, from the ancient literature.

It was not until 1997 A. D. when I began testing Arundhati observation and it was not until 2009 A. D. when I succeeded in solving the mystery of Arundhati . My tests of Arundhati observation not only resisted my falsification attempts, but also provided higher and lower bounds for plausible year of the Mahabharata War. The discovery of mine, as far as I am aware, is the first instance of such a precise prediction, albeit an interval bounded by higher and lower limits, for the plausible year of an ancient event, based on astronomical observations.

Once I established the Epoch of Arundhati (Chapter 6) as the plausible interval for the timing of Mahabharata War, I was eager to search this interval for the specific year of Mahabharata War. As a first step, I began searching for the works of other researchers. I collected 20+ works within a span of six months, thanks to the Internet, by those many different researchers. Nearly 125 dates, ranging from 6th millennium B.C. to 1st millennium B.C., have been suggested by researchers for the year of Mahabharata War. I could not access all of these works in the original and therefore my introduction to works of some of these researchers is based on works of others. Only 4 of these researchers had proposed years for the Mahabharata War that fell within the Epoch of Arundhati . On further inspection, I realized that 2 of these 4 works had suggested only an approximate time interval rather than a specific year for the Mahabharata War. I began my work by testing specific years proposed by remaining 2 researchers.

I was determined, unlike other researchers, to employ only internal astronomical observations, i.e. internal to Mahabharata. My decision is not due to any artificial sense of pure evidence. Rather my rationale is simple. Mahabharata had tremendous impact on later generations of Indian writers, astronomers, historians and purana writers and many of them have tried to estimate the timing of Mahabharata War. Their efforts in determining the year of Mahabharata War are valuable nonetheless they should be treated as conjectures which must undergo testing, as opposed to being treated as proven hypotheses.

Many researchers in last two centuries working on Mahabharata have precisely made this mistake. Some have used commonly accepted norms of astrology (and not astronomy), e.g. Astrological drishti in describing Mahabharata references of a specific planet afflicting specific nakshatra . The problem with this approach is that once one starts using astrological interpretations, there is no stopping and thus anything anywhere can be explained!

Many others have employed theories of VarahaMihir and those of others to explain Mahabharata observations; and worst part of these efforts is that these researchers have explained away, rather than explain Mahabharata observations. It would be reasonable, although conjectural, to rather assume that many interpretations in current Indian astronomy (or for that matter astrology) as well as works of VarahaMihir, Ganesh Daivajna, Aryabhatta, Nilkanth and others are based on astronomical data of the Mahabharata text, and trying to make sense of it.

I have endeavored to be rational and scientific in researching this problem. These words, of course, mean little since even the approach of science and rationality is misunderstood. I have seen both glorification and denigration of science, due to a mistaken theory of science and rationality a theory, which speaks of science and rationality in terms of specializations, experts and authorities. Writes Karl Popper,