04-15-2004, 10:53 AM
Here is a neat little essay on Tithi, Nakshatra and raashi
Tithi, Nakshatra, Raashi â¦
M. R. Dwarakanath
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->THE UNIVERSE: Our Universe consists of billions of galaxies; each galaxy comprising billions of stars. Our galaxy is called the Milky Way and all the stars we see in the night sky are in our galaxy. Stars in other galaxies are too far to be discerned as individual stars by the naked eye. Our Sun is a star in the Milky Way galaxy and has 9 known planets. Most of the planets have satellites or moons. Our Earth is the 3rd inner planet to the sun and the moon orbits the earth. All the objects in this universe are moving relative to each other at great speeds. Although all the astronomical objects are really moving at great speeds, the more distant objects appear to move more slowly and the stars are sufficiently far away that in terms of our time frames, the star field looks fixed in the firmament.
THE SUN and the EARTH: The Earth revolves once around the Sun in 365.256 days. Because the sun is also moving around the center of the galaxy, the earth does not return to the exact same spot in space after 365.256 days. The "fixed" background of stars is used as a reference when we say the earth completes one orbit around the sun in 365.256 days. At the end of one year the relative positions of the sun, the earth and the background stars will be the same as at the beginning of the year.
We can look at the sun during a total solar eclipse and find a star that is closest to the sun (better yet, one eclipsed by it) and declare the sun to be located in the direction of that star at that time. We can do this directly only during a total solar eclipse (assuming the sky is clear etc.) but at other times we can infer the location of the sun relative to the background stars. As the sun and earth move, the sun appears to move relative to the fixed stars. The sun traces an apparent path against this backdrop. This path is divided into 12 equal segments called the Zodiac or the Rashis. The brighter stars in the segment form a constellation. The constellations are given names based on their appearance and the imagination of people who named them. On any given day, the sun is in a specific Rashi. Actually, the sun spends one month in a Rashi as there are 12 Rashis and 12 months in a year.
THE MOON: The moon is revolving around the earth, the earth revolving around the sun and the sun revolving around the center of the galaxy. We could ignore the motion of the sun in looking at the motion of the earth. However, when we want to look at the motion of the moon, we cannot ignore the motion of the earth because these objects are much closer together. As before, we can look at the moon and pick the star closest to it. About a month a later, the moon will once again be very to close to the same star. The period of time for one such revolution is called a sidereal month and is 27.322 days long. At the end of a month, the moon will not return to the exact spot against the stars because of details having to do with the orbital planes of the earth and the moon.
The moon now makes a complete loop against the stellar backdrop in one sidereal month. This path is divided into 27 equal segments and each segment is associated with a Nakshatra. Each Nakshatra is further subdivided into 4 Padas. The location of the moon at the time of a personâs birth determines that personâs Janma Nakshatra and the pada. A Nakshatra is 4 padas and 27x4 padas are equally distributed among the 12 Rashis. Thus each Rashi includes 9 Padas.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>A sidereal month is the time taken by the moon to make one revolution against the stellar backdrop. A second kind of month is the time taken by the moon to make a complete loop with reference to the sun. The sun, earth and moon fall in a line once every fortnight or a Paksha. However, they fall in a line and in the same order once every synodic or lunar month. These bodies will not be in exact alignment every month. When the alignment is close enough, we have eclipses of either the sun or the moon and we know it does not happen every fortnight! The synodic month (Masa) is 29.531 days and has 2 Pakshas â Sukla and Krishna. Each Paksha has 15 days called Tithis. The Tithi is not related to the background stars but instead to the phases of the moon. The Tithis are numbered one through fourteen and the fifteenth day of the fortnight is called Poornima (full moon) or Amavasya (new moon). </span>
During mid Amavasya, the sun and the moon are both generally in the same direction as viewed from the earth and therefore they will be in the same Rashi.
TIME: The day we have been referring to is the mean solar day. This is the interval of time taken by the earth to make one rotation on its axis relative to the sun. This time is slightly variable and the average time is the mean solar day. Time can be universal but we are used to local time. Local time attempts to place the sun overhead at noon. The sun rises at different universal times at different points on the earth and at different times of the year. Some events such as Rahukala are related to sunrise and therefore to local time. However, at any given instant (not local time) the Nakshatra is the same independent of where you are! This is because the location of the earth and the moon relative to the stars is nearly the same irrespective of where you are on the earth.
How to figure your birth star? Let us say you do not know your birth star and you want to find out. You may consult the almanac of the year of your birth. This may be hard to find. However, if you have any almanac (most likely the current one) you can easily figure it out. Here is how:
Let us say, your date of birth is June 1, 1950 and time of birth â noon. We can calculate the number of days between June 1, 1950 and June 1, 1999. There are 49 years intervening of which 12 are leap years (actually, you have to count the number of February 29s between the two dates). The total number of days = 365x49 + 12 = 17897 days.
Divide this number (17897) by the number of days in a sidereal month (27.322).
17897/27.322 = 655.0399.
The significance of this division is that from June 1, 1950 to June 1, 1999 the moon has completed 655 revolutions. The moon has also made an extra 0.0399 revolutions. The time for this extra fraction of a revolution is 0.0399x27.322 = 1.09 days or 1 day and 2 hours. We have to go back 1 day and 2 hours from June 1, 1999 â noon, to find the exact same alignment of the earth, moon and your Nakshatra. It would be May 31 - 10 a.m. You may now look up the almanac for the Nakshatra at 10 a.m. on May 31, 1999!
Determination of Tithi is analogous. Simply use 29.531 in place of 27.322 in the above calculations. The answer is the Tithi at 7 a.m. on May 31, 1999. During this time the moon would have completed 606 lunar months. The fact, these two dates are relatively close is no accident. It can be explained with a simple sketch. This explains why Krishna Janmastami and Rohini Nakshatra either fall on the same day or just a few days apart. However, not all Krishna Paksha Astamis are close to Rohini Nakshatra. They are close in August!
Dr. Dwarakanath is a physicist working at Bell Labs. in New Jersey. He teaches sanskrit during his free time and interested in vedic learning and vedanta.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From one of the earlier links provided in the first post in this thread, we have the folllowing(one will forgive the references to an Aryan race, since the author is Western) ;
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The basis of Hindu calendar calculation is Vedic. This calendar has been modified and elaborated, but because it is based on the stars (nakshatras) visible to the naked eye, and on the visible Lunar phases, it is more accurate than any others of the past. The actual moments when Lunar months begin can easily be checked by the regular appearances of Solar eclipses, and the middle moment of a Lunar month -- Purnima or full moon -- can similarly be verified by the more frequent Lunar eclipses. Hence the Hindu calendar, not requiring special instruments for its rectification, has maintained great accuracy for thousands of years.
The oldest Aryan calendar is probably the Vedic; at first lunar, later with solar elements added to it. The sister Avesta calendar is similarly first Lunar, but later only Solar. Both these calendars (the oldest in the Aryan Race) are influenced by the prehistoric calendars of the first and second root races at the North Pole and its surroundings, as they reckon with days and nights lasting six months. (The Inca Zodiac, the Dendra Egyptian Zodiac, and the Chinese lunar mansions are possibly Atlantean or Atlanto-Aryan; though much has been added to both the Egyptian and the Chinese systems which is purely Aryan and post Vedic.)
For untold ages, the Hindus have observed the motion of the moon, the sun and the seven planets along a definite path that circles our sky and is marked by fixed clusters of stars. The moon afforded the simplest example. These early astronomers observed that the moon, moving among these fixed star constellations which they called nakshatras, returned to the same nakshatra in 27.32166 days, thus completing one nakshatra month. They found it convenient to divide these groups of stars into 27 almost equal sections, or the 27 nakshatras. By this method of reckoning, instead of giving the date of a month, as Western calendars do, the Hindus gave the name of the nakshatra in which the moon was to be seen. (The moon is in each of these nakshatras for approximately one day plus eighteen minutes.)
This scheme fitted nicely with the sun's cycle, for the Hindus noted that the sun traversed the same circle through the sky, but that it returned to its starting place only after 365.258756481 days, or what we call a Solar Sidereal Year. (Modern figures based on this Hindu figure quote 365.2596296 days -- a distinction without a difference, for ordinary purposes.) Now, having already divided the month into the 27 nakshatras for the convenience of reckoning the moon's voyage through the heavens, what more natural than that these same nakshatras should serve for the study of the Sun's course? Being in a circle of 360 degrees, each nakshatra takes up 131/3 degrees of that circle. The Sun, moving about 1 degree in a day, is seen for 131/3 days in each nakshatra. The system of reckoning according to the moon nakshatras is current today, that of the sun's being uncommon.
At present, the nakshatra reckoning, both Solar and Lunar, is begun from ASVINI, which is also the beginning of the first Zodiacal Rasi or sign Mesha. (Aswins, according to the Theosophical Glossary, are twin deities, "the Kumara-Egos, the reincarnating 'Principles' in this Manvantara.") This method obtains only at present, because, due to the precession of the equinoxes, not only will the English date change (after 1975) for the starting of the first Solar nakshatra, but in the course of a longer time, the sun's entry on any particular nakshatra will regress and occur during all the four seasons of the year. The Maitriopanishad (6.14) shows how, since the writing of that record, this regress has been taking place.
In brief, then, the earliest method, the Vedic, of counting, was to name the moon through the various nakshatras -- the circle or cycle repeating itself each Sidereal-Star-Month. Later the sun's place in the same nakshatras was noted, the year ending when the Sun returned to the same nakshatra. Then came the noting of the Solar and Lunar eclipses, and the observance of the New and Full Moons divided the month into the two phases of waxing and waning Moon, the month beginning at the moment of New Moon. This is how the Hindus reckon today, the month taking its name from the nakshatra in which the Full Moon is seen each month. The Full Moon being exactly opposite the Sun, the Solar nakshatra bears the same name as the Lunar month six months ahead, while each Lunar month bears the same name as the 14th Solar nakshatra ahead.
The Western student faced with these unfamiliar calculations may echo the old Persian proverb, "Why count big numbers and small fractions, when they are all amassed in 1?" But the Hindu looks on these figures from another point of view -- he lives with them, and among them, and by them, much of the time. Consider a Sanscrit sloka (verse) about the Savati or pearl nakshatra, which marks the new season after the monsoon is over. The sloka says, "If in the Swati a rain drop falls into the sea, that drop becomes a pearl." This may sound foolish, for the peasant, though he live in the depth of the interior of India, knows that pearls come from the sea -- even if he does not necessarily understand that these pearls grow inside the oyster. He does know, however, that if it rains at this period of the year, his crops will yield great wealth. And the pearl is synonymous with wealth among people who, if they have any money, invest it in jewelry, especially gold and pearls, rather than in the banks. (Poetically, rice, their staple food, is referred to as pearls.) Thus another apparently meaningless sloka which stumps the dry and intellectually bound translators, is found to contain "pearls of wisdom"!
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The following is also a useful beginner essay on Jyotish (one of the links above)
For Beginners in Jyotish-1
Tithi, Nakshatra, Raashi â¦
M. R. Dwarakanath
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->THE UNIVERSE: Our Universe consists of billions of galaxies; each galaxy comprising billions of stars. Our galaxy is called the Milky Way and all the stars we see in the night sky are in our galaxy. Stars in other galaxies are too far to be discerned as individual stars by the naked eye. Our Sun is a star in the Milky Way galaxy and has 9 known planets. Most of the planets have satellites or moons. Our Earth is the 3rd inner planet to the sun and the moon orbits the earth. All the objects in this universe are moving relative to each other at great speeds. Although all the astronomical objects are really moving at great speeds, the more distant objects appear to move more slowly and the stars are sufficiently far away that in terms of our time frames, the star field looks fixed in the firmament.
THE SUN and the EARTH: The Earth revolves once around the Sun in 365.256 days. Because the sun is also moving around the center of the galaxy, the earth does not return to the exact same spot in space after 365.256 days. The "fixed" background of stars is used as a reference when we say the earth completes one orbit around the sun in 365.256 days. At the end of one year the relative positions of the sun, the earth and the background stars will be the same as at the beginning of the year.
We can look at the sun during a total solar eclipse and find a star that is closest to the sun (better yet, one eclipsed by it) and declare the sun to be located in the direction of that star at that time. We can do this directly only during a total solar eclipse (assuming the sky is clear etc.) but at other times we can infer the location of the sun relative to the background stars. As the sun and earth move, the sun appears to move relative to the fixed stars. The sun traces an apparent path against this backdrop. This path is divided into 12 equal segments called the Zodiac or the Rashis. The brighter stars in the segment form a constellation. The constellations are given names based on their appearance and the imagination of people who named them. On any given day, the sun is in a specific Rashi. Actually, the sun spends one month in a Rashi as there are 12 Rashis and 12 months in a year.
THE MOON: The moon is revolving around the earth, the earth revolving around the sun and the sun revolving around the center of the galaxy. We could ignore the motion of the sun in looking at the motion of the earth. However, when we want to look at the motion of the moon, we cannot ignore the motion of the earth because these objects are much closer together. As before, we can look at the moon and pick the star closest to it. About a month a later, the moon will once again be very to close to the same star. The period of time for one such revolution is called a sidereal month and is 27.322 days long. At the end of a month, the moon will not return to the exact spot against the stars because of details having to do with the orbital planes of the earth and the moon.
The moon now makes a complete loop against the stellar backdrop in one sidereal month. This path is divided into 27 equal segments and each segment is associated with a Nakshatra. Each Nakshatra is further subdivided into 4 Padas. The location of the moon at the time of a personâs birth determines that personâs Janma Nakshatra and the pada. A Nakshatra is 4 padas and 27x4 padas are equally distributed among the 12 Rashis. Thus each Rashi includes 9 Padas.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>A sidereal month is the time taken by the moon to make one revolution against the stellar backdrop. A second kind of month is the time taken by the moon to make a complete loop with reference to the sun. The sun, earth and moon fall in a line once every fortnight or a Paksha. However, they fall in a line and in the same order once every synodic or lunar month. These bodies will not be in exact alignment every month. When the alignment is close enough, we have eclipses of either the sun or the moon and we know it does not happen every fortnight! The synodic month (Masa) is 29.531 days and has 2 Pakshas â Sukla and Krishna. Each Paksha has 15 days called Tithis. The Tithi is not related to the background stars but instead to the phases of the moon. The Tithis are numbered one through fourteen and the fifteenth day of the fortnight is called Poornima (full moon) or Amavasya (new moon). </span>
During mid Amavasya, the sun and the moon are both generally in the same direction as viewed from the earth and therefore they will be in the same Rashi.
TIME: The day we have been referring to is the mean solar day. This is the interval of time taken by the earth to make one rotation on its axis relative to the sun. This time is slightly variable and the average time is the mean solar day. Time can be universal but we are used to local time. Local time attempts to place the sun overhead at noon. The sun rises at different universal times at different points on the earth and at different times of the year. Some events such as Rahukala are related to sunrise and therefore to local time. However, at any given instant (not local time) the Nakshatra is the same independent of where you are! This is because the location of the earth and the moon relative to the stars is nearly the same irrespective of where you are on the earth.
How to figure your birth star? Let us say you do not know your birth star and you want to find out. You may consult the almanac of the year of your birth. This may be hard to find. However, if you have any almanac (most likely the current one) you can easily figure it out. Here is how:
Let us say, your date of birth is June 1, 1950 and time of birth â noon. We can calculate the number of days between June 1, 1950 and June 1, 1999. There are 49 years intervening of which 12 are leap years (actually, you have to count the number of February 29s between the two dates). The total number of days = 365x49 + 12 = 17897 days.
Divide this number (17897) by the number of days in a sidereal month (27.322).
17897/27.322 = 655.0399.
The significance of this division is that from June 1, 1950 to June 1, 1999 the moon has completed 655 revolutions. The moon has also made an extra 0.0399 revolutions. The time for this extra fraction of a revolution is 0.0399x27.322 = 1.09 days or 1 day and 2 hours. We have to go back 1 day and 2 hours from June 1, 1999 â noon, to find the exact same alignment of the earth, moon and your Nakshatra. It would be May 31 - 10 a.m. You may now look up the almanac for the Nakshatra at 10 a.m. on May 31, 1999!
Determination of Tithi is analogous. Simply use 29.531 in place of 27.322 in the above calculations. The answer is the Tithi at 7 a.m. on May 31, 1999. During this time the moon would have completed 606 lunar months. The fact, these two dates are relatively close is no accident. It can be explained with a simple sketch. This explains why Krishna Janmastami and Rohini Nakshatra either fall on the same day or just a few days apart. However, not all Krishna Paksha Astamis are close to Rohini Nakshatra. They are close in August!
Dr. Dwarakanath is a physicist working at Bell Labs. in New Jersey. He teaches sanskrit during his free time and interested in vedic learning and vedanta.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From one of the earlier links provided in the first post in this thread, we have the folllowing(one will forgive the references to an Aryan race, since the author is Western) ;
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The basis of Hindu calendar calculation is Vedic. This calendar has been modified and elaborated, but because it is based on the stars (nakshatras) visible to the naked eye, and on the visible Lunar phases, it is more accurate than any others of the past. The actual moments when Lunar months begin can easily be checked by the regular appearances of Solar eclipses, and the middle moment of a Lunar month -- Purnima or full moon -- can similarly be verified by the more frequent Lunar eclipses. Hence the Hindu calendar, not requiring special instruments for its rectification, has maintained great accuracy for thousands of years.
The oldest Aryan calendar is probably the Vedic; at first lunar, later with solar elements added to it. The sister Avesta calendar is similarly first Lunar, but later only Solar. Both these calendars (the oldest in the Aryan Race) are influenced by the prehistoric calendars of the first and second root races at the North Pole and its surroundings, as they reckon with days and nights lasting six months. (The Inca Zodiac, the Dendra Egyptian Zodiac, and the Chinese lunar mansions are possibly Atlantean or Atlanto-Aryan; though much has been added to both the Egyptian and the Chinese systems which is purely Aryan and post Vedic.)
For untold ages, the Hindus have observed the motion of the moon, the sun and the seven planets along a definite path that circles our sky and is marked by fixed clusters of stars. The moon afforded the simplest example. These early astronomers observed that the moon, moving among these fixed star constellations which they called nakshatras, returned to the same nakshatra in 27.32166 days, thus completing one nakshatra month. They found it convenient to divide these groups of stars into 27 almost equal sections, or the 27 nakshatras. By this method of reckoning, instead of giving the date of a month, as Western calendars do, the Hindus gave the name of the nakshatra in which the moon was to be seen. (The moon is in each of these nakshatras for approximately one day plus eighteen minutes.)
This scheme fitted nicely with the sun's cycle, for the Hindus noted that the sun traversed the same circle through the sky, but that it returned to its starting place only after 365.258756481 days, or what we call a Solar Sidereal Year. (Modern figures based on this Hindu figure quote 365.2596296 days -- a distinction without a difference, for ordinary purposes.) Now, having already divided the month into the 27 nakshatras for the convenience of reckoning the moon's voyage through the heavens, what more natural than that these same nakshatras should serve for the study of the Sun's course? Being in a circle of 360 degrees, each nakshatra takes up 131/3 degrees of that circle. The Sun, moving about 1 degree in a day, is seen for 131/3 days in each nakshatra. The system of reckoning according to the moon nakshatras is current today, that of the sun's being uncommon.
At present, the nakshatra reckoning, both Solar and Lunar, is begun from ASVINI, which is also the beginning of the first Zodiacal Rasi or sign Mesha. (Aswins, according to the Theosophical Glossary, are twin deities, "the Kumara-Egos, the reincarnating 'Principles' in this Manvantara.") This method obtains only at present, because, due to the precession of the equinoxes, not only will the English date change (after 1975) for the starting of the first Solar nakshatra, but in the course of a longer time, the sun's entry on any particular nakshatra will regress and occur during all the four seasons of the year. The Maitriopanishad (6.14) shows how, since the writing of that record, this regress has been taking place.
In brief, then, the earliest method, the Vedic, of counting, was to name the moon through the various nakshatras -- the circle or cycle repeating itself each Sidereal-Star-Month. Later the sun's place in the same nakshatras was noted, the year ending when the Sun returned to the same nakshatra. Then came the noting of the Solar and Lunar eclipses, and the observance of the New and Full Moons divided the month into the two phases of waxing and waning Moon, the month beginning at the moment of New Moon. This is how the Hindus reckon today, the month taking its name from the nakshatra in which the Full Moon is seen each month. The Full Moon being exactly opposite the Sun, the Solar nakshatra bears the same name as the Lunar month six months ahead, while each Lunar month bears the same name as the 14th Solar nakshatra ahead.
The Western student faced with these unfamiliar calculations may echo the old Persian proverb, "Why count big numbers and small fractions, when they are all amassed in 1?" But the Hindu looks on these figures from another point of view -- he lives with them, and among them, and by them, much of the time. Consider a Sanscrit sloka (verse) about the Savati or pearl nakshatra, which marks the new season after the monsoon is over. The sloka says, "If in the Swati a rain drop falls into the sea, that drop becomes a pearl." This may sound foolish, for the peasant, though he live in the depth of the interior of India, knows that pearls come from the sea -- even if he does not necessarily understand that these pearls grow inside the oyster. He does know, however, that if it rains at this period of the year, his crops will yield great wealth. And the pearl is synonymous with wealth among people who, if they have any money, invest it in jewelry, especially gold and pearls, rather than in the banks. (Poetically, rice, their staple food, is referred to as pearls.) Thus another apparently meaningless sloka which stumps the dry and intellectually bound translators, is found to contain "pearls of wisdom"!
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The following is also a useful beginner essay on Jyotish (one of the links above)
For Beginners in Jyotish-1