Jyotish. Andrew Mason

more information about Nakshatra positions and stellar designations see the Appendix.

12.Revati Nakshatra is held to be the initial point of all planetary motion. At the start of Kali Yuga all planets were set into motion at the point marked by Revati yogatârâ. All planets then complete a set number of sidereal revolutions before conjoining every 1,080,000 years or ¼ of a Great Age or Yuga. Something close to this appears to have occurred at midnight 17/02/3101 BC.

13.Sûrya Siddhânta identifies the spring equinox (c. AD 560) as coinciding with a point 10’ eastward along the ecliptic from the star Revati (longitude 359º 50′).

14.See Lesson 3 in Shashi (2009[1978]).

15.Category: sub-giant, approximately 150 light years distant.

16.Category: white (main sequence star), approximately 200 light years distant.

17.Category: pale yellow/white dwarf, approximately 250 light years distant.

18.White dwarf = stellar remnants in their final stage of evolution. Final stages include swelling of mass (a red giant), then the shedding of outer layers to an emission nebula (ionised gas) leaving only its heated core to cool over time.

19.There are five categories of variability: cataclysmic (explosive/nova), pulsating (contraction and expansion), eruptive (solar flaring), rotating (high sunspot activity) or eclipsing (close proximity of binary twin).

20.χ Cygni is known to vary from +3.3 mv to +14.2 mv over a 400-day period. These observations may explain the phenomenon of guest stars (the accounts of new stars) appearing and disappearing in the past two millennia.

21.30º = Rashi, 13º 20′ = Nakshatra and 3º 20′ = Nakshatra Pada.

22.Not including the recently de-planetised Pluto with its whopping 17º+ inclination to the ecliptic.

23.The word Solstice means ‘motionless Sun’ indicating the ancients’ obsession with solar declination.

24.Brihat Saṃhitā, Vol. 1, Chapter III – ‘On the Sun’.

25.The Great Year has been discussed at some length in Hamlet’s Mill by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend (2014[1969]) and The Seven Ages of Man by Andrew Kirk (2013).

26.Also known as non-spherical or subject to free nutation.

27.Vibrations expected to be produced by a system of oscillation.

28.JPL = Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

29.Chandler wobble: two larger phase jumps revealed by Zinovy Malkin and Natalia Miller, Central Astronomical Observatory, Pulkovskoe, Ch. 65, St. Petersburg 196140, Russia, 23 August 2009.

30.See Binary Research Institute: http://binaryresearchinstitute.org.

31.In simpler terms, luni-solar causation sees the combined gravitational force of the Sun and Moon acting upon the Earth to produce its third eccentricity of orbit, precession of the equinoxes.

32.A.U. (astronomical unit) = 92,928,090 miles or 149,597,870,700 metres.

33.As Earth’s orbit effectively defines the ecliptic, establishment of Earth nodes requires another plane of reference, such as the Sun′s equatorial plane. Assuming Revatipaksha identifies 0º Aries, the longitude of Earth’s ascending node is currently close to 54º.

34.Prior to the CRC, thirty different calendar systems were used in India, including: Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Muslim and Gregorian.

35.Hindu astrological calendar and almanac.

36.Islamic Hegira Calendar, inception date 15 July AD 622, is purely lunar.

37.Committee members consisted of: Professor M.N.Saha, D.Sc., F.R.S., M.P. (Chairman); Professor A.C. Banerji, Vice-Chancellor, Allahabad University; Dr K.L. Daftari, Nagpur; Sri J.S. Karandikar, Ex-Editor (The Kesari), Poona; Dr Gorakh Prasad, D.Sc., Allahabad University; Professor R.V. Vaidya, Madhav College, Ujjain; and Sri. N.C. Lahiri, Calcutta (Secretary).

38.The CRC’s report was eventually circulated in a book format titled History of the Calendar in Different Countries Through the Ages by M.N. Saha and N.C. Lahiri (1992). This investigation still makes interesting reading some sixty years on and should, regardless of any shortcomings, be included in the list of essential reads for those wishing to gain greater insight into this fractious issue.

39.Chitrā = α Virginis, Pakṣa = relating to half.

40.Collectively given the acronym S.J. or Siddhânta-Jyotish, that is, covering the calendrical switch between the earlier Vedāṅga Jotish (lunar) to the later Siddhantic period (solar).

41.Varāhahimira in his Pañca Siddhântika regarded it as his most authoritative and reliable reference source.

42.See Ketkar (1921).

43.Spica/α Virginis is actually a double-variable, appearing to fluctuate between +0.9 and +1.05 mv.

44.The Sûrya Siddhânta referenced by Varāhamihira (in Pañca Siddhântika) does not include the use of polar longitude.