Dec 20

[Guest guest]

Dear Yadu-srestha Prabhu,

Pamho. AgtSP.

 

I hope that you, and the devotees I know in Melbourne, are well.

 

> But here's the

> tricky part.Even if you tell a Doctor the exact date and time is there any

> guarantee that that will eventuate .An hours delay can change the whole

> structure of the chart. You may go into labor early or the Doctor may be

> held up with another patient or there may be no ward available.

 

In this connection I would to narrate one story which illustrate this

nicely. There is a famous Indian mathematician and astronomer named

Bhaskara II (to distinguish him from another Indian mathematician of that

name). He lived in the 12th century AD. He is famous for writing the

treatise named Siddhanta Siromani. This treatise has four parts: the first

two is devoted to mathematics the second two to astronomy. The first part

of the work is named Lilavati and there is an interesting story about how it

got that name. There are some variants of this story but here is one I

remember. Bhaskara had a daughter named Lilavati, and being learned in the

science of astrology Bhaskara could see that the marriage of his daughter

would end prematurely: her husband would pass away before his time. For a

woman in those days this would be a disaster so Bhaskara did some

calculations and found that if she were to get married at a precise time on

a precise day the disaster could be avoided. He then constructed a sand

glass the flow of which would fix the time of the wedding. But it so

happened that the day before her wedding Lilavati got curious about this

instrument (the sand glass). Looking into it, by the arrangement of fate,

one small pearl from the ornament on her nose fell into the sand, and

somehow interfered with its flow. As a result the marriage was celebrated

later than the calculated time of Bhaskara. As a result Lilavati's husband

passed away at an early age. In order to console his daughter Bhaskara

taught his daughter arithmetic and named the section of the Siddhanta

Siromani dealing with arithmetic Lilavati after her.

 

Whether this is a true story is hard to say.

 

Your servant,

Thakura-seva dasa