The Fifth Veda and the Uttarayana

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Dear friends,

 

There is misunderstanding among some people regarding what is the meant by the

fifth Dear friends,

 

 

 

There is misunderstanding among some people regarding what is the meant

by the fifth Veda and what does it say about the Uttarayana. L:et us

see what these things are:

 

 

 

1)

 

The Fifth Veda

 

 

 

The Puranas have been called by the Chandogya Upanishad and the

Brihadaranyak upanishad as the fifth Veda. Vayu Purana tells us that

before Vedavyasa divided the Vedas and the upanishads all the Vedas and

the Puranas were together as a single Veda. When Vedavyasa found that

it wast became almost impossible for any single individual to master

all that is encompassed in the Veda, he divided and rearranged the

original single Veda into five parts ie. the four Vedas (Rig, Yajur,

Sama and  Atharva Veda) and the fifth Veda comprising all the Puranas

together.  The Mahabharata tells us that one must study the Puranas and

Itihasas before reading the Vedas. Thus no one can afford to think the

Puranas to be any lower than the Vedas. Again some uninformed people

grudgingly say that the Bhagavad purana alone  may be the fifth Veda.

Nothing can be further from the truth. All the major puranas are

important. However Padmapurana tells us that the Bhagavat purana is

best among the Puranas. It is somehing  like Lord Rama telling Hanuman

that if anybody can read only one Upanishad that must-read will be the

Mandukya Upanishad. That does not mean that one can ignore the other

Upanishads.

 

 

 

2)

 

Uttarayana

 

 

 

Before we discuss Uttarayana it is necessary to define what is " Rashi " ,

as that comes in the discussion on Uttarayn a and also difine the word

" Uttarayan " also.

 

 

 

(i) Definition of Rashi

 

 

 

The rashi is defined in the Vamana purana as containg nine padas

(quarters) of Nakshatras, ie, two and a quarter nakshatras. Thus the

ecliptic of 27 nakshatras are divided into 27 parts for 27 nakshatras

and the ecliptic is further divided int 12 parts each called as rashi.

The rashi contains two ans a quarter of rashis in each of them. Vamana

purana tells us which are the nakshatras in which rashi. As the

nakshatras are fixed so are the rashis by definition. These fixed

rashis are called Nirayana rashis using a later-day word " Nirayana " (

Nih+ ayana, where nih means no and ayana means movement, though ayana

has other meanings too). There term was not used in the ancient times

as there wqas no need for that because everybody knew that rashis are

fixed. That is how this word Nirayana has entered the vocabulary. We

the Hindus believe that all the words have been coined at one time or

the other except AUM or OM. So no sensible person ever questions the

use of the word Nirayana. Some unscrupulous people at some time in

later-day history imagined the Rashis also to be moving according to

the precessional movement. These people call these rashis to be moving

and not fixed and called the imaginary moving rashis as Sayana rashis

ie Rashis with movement. If this type of audacity would have taken

place in  Lord Rama's time he would have had these people killed

summarily.

 

 

 

(ii) Definition of Uttarayana

 

..

 

Uttarayana comes from combination of the the words Uttara, which means

North and  Ayana, which means movement. Thus Uttarayana means the Sun's

northerly movement. Similarly Dakshinayana means the southerly movement

of the Sun, in the geocentric model of the Solar system. These two

movements occur due to precessional m,evement of tyhe Earth.

 

 

 

(iii) Uttarayana as described by the Fifth Veda

 

 

 

Now having defined the Fifth Veda, the Rashi and the Uttarayana let us see what

the fifth Veda says about the Uttarayana.

 

 

 

Vishnu purana (2.8.28 - 31) says that the Northerly movement of the Sun

begins when the Sun is in the Makar rash. Then the Sun moves to Kumbha

and Mina and after passing through these three signs it goes to the

Vishuvati (the equator) and makes day and night equal. Thereafter the

nights go on diminishing and days go on increasing. After the end of

Mithuna ie. in the Karkata rashi the day is the longest and then the

southerly movement begins.

 

 

 

Vishnu purana (2.8.67 - 68) again says that the equinoxes occur in the

middle of the Sharad and the Vasanta seasons, when the Sun enters the

Tula and Mesha rashis respectively and the days and nights become

equal. The southerly movement occurs when the Sun is in the Karkata and

the Northerly moveement occurs when the sun is in the Makara rashi.

 

 

 

Please note here that nowhere it says that the points are at the

beginning of Makara and Karkata. In fact in Vedanga Jyotisha the points

are in the Dhanishtha nakshatra in the Makar rashi ie towards the end

of the Makar rashi.

 

 

 

Bhagavat purana 5.21.4 - 6) uses the word " Vartate " , which means toi

stay. .It says that when the Sun is (or stays) in the Mesha and Tula

the days and nights are equal and while passing through the five rashis

from Vrishabha the days go on increasing and nights go on diminishing

by one ghatika every month. When the Sun is passing through the five

rashis from Vrischika there is viparyaya ie. ther is upset or the

reverse occurs. In the Uttarayana the days increase and in the

Dakshinayana the nights increase.

 

 

 

Vishnu Dharmottara Purana  (3.8.6- 8) also says the same thing. In

Vishnu Dharmottara Purana (3.9.4 n- 5) the names of the seasonal months

are given along with corresponding Sidereal months. You can very well

notice that in the Vedanga jyotisha also the monh Tapa corresponded

with the Siderael month of Magha.

 

 

 

There is  correspondence of the time periods in the  puranas  and the

Vedanga Jyotisha as shown avove and this means they refer to what

happened at the same period of time.. The  critics of the Hindu

Jyotisha want to say that the ancient Hindu astronomers did not know

about precession and that the positions of the solstices and equinoxes 

given in the above puranas for a particular time has to remain the same

for ever. It is simply the ignorance of these critics.

 

 

Further for your information most of the Indian panchanga makers follow

the Suryasiddhanta and Grahalaghava for their calculations and only for

the absolute accuracy in the time (ie. for accuracy upto second) of the

eclipses they take information from the Positional Astronomy Centre in

Kolkata. Some ignorant critics unnecessarily mistakenly blame the

honest Panchanga makers as taking all data from the modern astronomy

centres and yet applying corrections there. Then some such critics

blame about the different values of the ayanamasa corrections but have

they quantified the effect of these variations of the ayanamashas?

Hindu jyotishis have become theitr punching bags all the time,possibly

at the behest of some foreign agencies

 

 

 

In conclusion I wish to say that the Fifth Veda holds that the rashis

are Nirayana or fixed and the Uttarayana referred to in the purana was

true at the time it was incorporated in these puranas. Puranas by

virtue of their five compulsory criteria had  to update the history,

which of course includes the astronomical informations at different

times. Because of the changes due to the precession of the Earth the

ancient astronomers recorded the solstices and the equinoxes occurring

at different nakshatras at different times.  

 

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Sunil K. Bhattacharjya