Yes, that is why.A_Gupta wrote:Probably because there is a north-south gradient of ANI and ASI components, not an east-west component?JE Menon wrote:Can someone explain why these are, first of all, classified as "Ancestral North Indian" and "Ancestral South Indian"? Might they not be just as viably classified as Ancestral East Indian and Ancestral West Indian?
In general the admixture of ASI and ANI varies from 60:40 in the south to 40:60 in the north. I think only Kashmiris and Pashtuns have a 30:70 ASI:ANI ratio.JE Menon wrote:Can someone explain why these are, first of all, classified as "Ancestral North Indian" and "Ancestral South Indian"? Might they not be just as viably classified as Ancestral East Indian and Ancestral West Indian?
I think a direct link from our Nicobar brethren to our Original (paki) Descendants of Mohenjodaro would be most excellent. With pics, pls. I hope the Nicobar brethren forgive us for the insult, it is in a good cause. My sense is that the big difference is the TFTA-ness which CLEARLY indicates a dominant goat-DNA (GNA) and some dog DNA that contributes to TFTAness. So pls also post a pic of Brinjej Ayesha, Queen of the Khyber Slopes so ppl can see the difference.tribal and a Paki
Not quite.shiv wrote:In general the admixture of ASI and ANI varies from 60:40 in the south to 40:60 in the north. I think only Kashmiris and Pashtuns have a 30:70 ASI:ANI ratio.JE Menon wrote:Can someone explain why these are, first of all, classified as "Ancestral North Indian" and "Ancestral South Indian"? Might they not be just as viably classified as Ancestral East Indian and Ancestral West Indian?
Still - it is a pretty thorough mix with the tribal forager in Orissa having a good mix of the same genes as a Kashmiri Pandit or a Jat. This kind of gene mixture is not found, for example among Iranians, Turks or Europeans - even if they share R1
I have not re read the paper recently but the admixture dates back to 12000 years or more.
I have a small problem with the Vahia paper. Here is what I mean. I quote from VahiaRudradev wrote:
A separate paper, by Vahia et al http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0176985 , uses a very different technique based on estimating population diffusion patterns (which I reviewed briefly here viewtopic.php?p=2157220#p2157220). Their estimated time range for large-scale admixture of ANI with ASI is between 6000 to 4000 years ago.
Earlier I had done an Excel spreadsheet of ASI/ANI percentages found in the Reich paper that had the classifications by upper and lower caste and tribal as well as IE or Dravidian language. All groups taken together showed a distribution of ASI:ANI that varied from 70:30 to 40:60. But taking ONLY the tribals - the admixture was only around 50:50 or 40:60. What Vahia et al have done is to use the central India component of this group because their simulations showed merging in central India.we restrict our study only to the tribes studied directly by Basu et al. [14] and Sharma et al. [48] since these are the only tribes in Central India, our region of interest where different population groups are seen to merge in the course of our simulations.
PS: This is a variant of gaslighting and I credit LokeshC for educating me about gaslightingHe Ha. It's OK. No need to cover your guilt by getting angry. I know you farted. We don't mind - just warn us next time.
You're right. There is another problem too... Vahia et al set the t-zero for their diffusion simulations at 10k ybp. Why so late, if ANI was in India 45k ypb and ASI 60 ybp?shiv wrote:I have a small problem with the Vahia paper. Here is what I mean. I quote from VahiaRudradev wrote:
A separate paper, by Vahia et al http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0176985 , uses a very different technique based on estimating population diffusion patterns (which I reviewed briefly here viewtopic.php?p=2157220#p2157220). Their estimated time range for large-scale admixture of ANI with ASI is between 6000 to 4000 years ago.Earlier I had done an Excel spreadsheet of ASI/ANI percentages found in the Reich paper that had the classifications by upper and lower caste and tribal as well as IE or Dravidian language. All groups taken together showed a distribution of ASI:ANI that varied from 70:30 to 40:60. But taking ONLY the tribals - the admixture was only around 50:50 or 40:60. What Vahia et al have done is to use the central India component of this group because their simulations showed merging in central India.we restrict our study only to the tribes studied directly by Basu et al. [14] and Sharma et al. [48] since these are the only tribes in Central India, our region of interest where different population groups are seen to merge in the course of our simulations.
In fact this simulation as far as I can tell does not take into account the fact that these tribals may have been the last to merge because even today in 2017 they live in hostile/isolated geographical terrain. Even today you have castes and tribes as separate classifications. If the tribes admixed around 4000-6000 years ago I posit that the others probably admixed far earlier. This is a hypothesis but I state it because the sample population in the Vahia paper is very narrow.
...
Which is basically saying "we couldn't claim our simulation model was reliable if we started any further back than that".Our present study has been carried out over a period of about 10,000 years before the present era; as timescales for geological changes are considerably longer than this, it is appropriate for us to make use of contemporary geographical data.
I worry because the 4000 ybp date will be pounced upon and digested by AITiansRudradev wrote: However, even with the late t-zero and the selection of samples only from Central Indian tribes, it does provide a parsimonious estimation of "late bound" admixture timeframe which isn't friendly to the "1500 BC" charlatans. (I see you made that observation too in your edited post)
Have you posted the spreadsheet of the Reich ASI/ANI percentages anywhere online?
Why ‘study’ the past instead of recounting your community’s story about the past? I mean, why are we not satisfied in recounting Ramayana, Mahabharata, puranas, etc as our stories about our past? What do we need to study and why? To these questions, there is a plausible sounding answer: ‘we need to know whether these stories are true’. Ask again why: Why do we need to know whether these stories are true? After all, as we believe, these stories have been in circulation for millennia and they have adequately and admirably met the needs of our ancestors (and most of our contemporaries as well) in their quest for human flourishing. So, what extra reasons exist to ‘study’ the past?
Here is the first possible answer, which takes the form of a question: what if our stories about the past turn out to be false? Let me answer it with a counter-question: so what? What does it matter whether what we believe about our past is true or false as long as it helps us in human flourishing? One can choose truth above falsehood if (a) truth about the past helps us live better as human beings and (b) falsehood damages us. Without answering these questions, one cannot provide extra reasons to study the past.
Here is a second possible answer that attempts to sidestep the issue: “we need to know the truth about the past because only as such do we have knowledge about the past. We do not need to justify this knowledge about the past any further because, surely, knowledge is its own justification.” However, this answer too does not work. Why?
In the spectrum that I am constructing for the purposes of this piece, these two attitudes reveal two faces of the same coin. One face looks at the tales of the past of their peoples and cultures as disguised historical narration but discovers some ‘kernel’ of truth in such narrations. It assumes, in a manner of speaking, that other people somehow did not know how to compose historical narratives (or did not care to do so) and that one has to ‘interpret’ these stories to extract the ‘truth’ from such stories. This is how, for example, the European intellectuals looked at the Greek myths during the Italian Renaissance. They felt that the Greek legends talked of human virtues but that these narratives represented such virtues (like courage, bravery, generosity, justice, etc) in the form of ‘heroes’ and ‘gods’. So, one had to ‘sympathetically’ read the myths and the legends of the Ancient Greek society to really understand what they are trying to say.
The ‘heroes’ of the European Enlightenment, by contrast, exemplify the second face of the coin. In their ‘Quarrel with the Ancients’, they were vitriolic in their assessment of the achievements of the Ancient Greek society, especially their myths and legends. Opposed to these myths and legends, which were mere stories and products of wild human imagination, stand ‘facts’ and ‘history’. One merely reads these stories for ‘entertainment’; to ascribe to them any other status is to live under an illusion. They were lies about the past which the poets constructed. The Ancients, with the exception of historians like Thucydides, really produced myths and legends. Instead of enlightening us about ‘what the past was really like’, these stories deceive us.
Common to both these attitudes is the idea that we ‘ought not’ to take these stories about the past seriously. Such stories are not about the past; these are merely products of the human imagination. Only historiography can teach us about the past and, if we care about the past at all, we should care about ‘history’. In other words, what these two attitudes say is the following: they claim that our stories about the past are not about anything real. They do not speak about objects or events in the world. If we are perceptive enough, these stories tell us something about the world of the authors indirectly; they do also tell us about the nature of human imagination. In and of themselves, these stories are really about nothing. If this is true, huge questions open up which they never even address: why did people from earlier generations produce all those stories? Why, instead of talking about the world, did they write only fiction? If Thucydides could write empirical history, why could Valmiki or Vyasa not be able to do the same? And so on.
In order to destroy the past of a people, all you need to do is to give them history.
Since you are a metallurgist? would you know how Indian steel reached damascus? Would you also know how Indian lohars made the delhi iron pillar? Do note: not having a record for your or my perusal does not negate the existence of knowledge be it of steel or iron pillar.SriJoy wrote:....For e.g., i can find actual, 2000 year old documents manual for making certain kinds of bronze in Roman empire 100 times more frequently and easily than Indian history.
No. What politicises our history is incompetent scholars and scholars who have agendas. World over archaeo-astronomy is becoming a valid field but not yet in India. Do you know the reasons?Srijoy wrote:
I am simply making an observation from seeing history for decades now- our records-keeping is less qualitative and quantitative than certain other parts of the world in certain time-frames. this is also what overly-politicizes Indian history for part,because our body of raw data is far narrower.
What do you think all these pots from 14000 BC were being used for:Srijoy wrote: As you noted, earliest evidence of agriculture we have so far, is right after ice age/just as ice age was ending, i.e., 9500 years- 10,000 years ago.
The earliest-known ceramic objects are Gravettian figurines such as those discovered at Dolní Věstonice in the modern-day Czech Republic. The Venus of Dolní Věstonice is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BC (Gravettian industry).[6]
The earliest pottery vessels date back to 20,000 BP and were discovered in Xianrendong cave in Jiangxi, China.[39][40] The pottery may have been used as cookware.[39] Other early pottery vessels include those excavated from the Yuchanyan Cave in southern China, dated from 16,000 BC,[41] and those found in the Amur River basin in the Russian Far East, dated from 14,000 BC.[8][42]
The Odai Yamamoto I site, belonging to the Jomon period, currently has the oldest pottery in Japan. Excavations in 1998 uncovered earthenware fragments which have been dated as early as 14,500 BC (ca 16,500 BP).[43] The term "Jōmon" means "cord-marked" in Japanese. This refers to the markings made on the vessels and figures using sticks with cords during their production. Recent research has elucidated how Jomon pottery was used by its creators.[44]
Pottery was a hunter-gatherer innovation that first emerged in East Asia between 20,000 and 12,000 calibrated years before present1, 2 (cal bp), towards the end of the Late Pleistocene epoch, a period of time when humans were adjusting to changing climates and new environments. Ceramic container technologies were one of a range of late glacial adaptations that were pivotal to structuring subsequent cultural trajectories in different regions of the world, but the reasons for their emergence and widespread uptake are poorly understood. The first ceramic containers must have provided prehistoric hunter-gatherers with attractive new strategies for processing and consuming foodstuffs, but virtually nothing is known of how early pots were used. Here we report the chemical analysis of food residues associated with Late Pleistocene pottery, focusing on one of the best-studied prehistoric ceramic sequences in the world, the Japanese Jōmon. We demonstrate that lipids can be recovered reliably from charred surface deposits adhering to pottery dating from about 15,000 to 11,800 cal bp (the Incipient Jōmon period), the oldest pottery so far investigated, and that in most cases these organic compounds are unequivocally derived from processing freshwater and marine organisms. Stable isotope data support the lipid evidence and suggest that most of the 101 charred deposits analysed, from across the major islands of Japan, were derived from high-trophic-level aquatic food. Productive aquatic ecotones were heavily exploited by late glacial foragers3, perhaps providing an initial impetus for investment in ceramic container technology, and paving the way for further intensification of pottery use by hunter-gatherers in the early Holocene epoch. Now that we have shown that it is possible to analyse organic residues from some of the world’s earliest ceramic vessels, the subsequent development of this critical technology can be clarified through further widespread testing of hunter-gatherer pottery from later periods.
The Dolni Vestonice Venus is part of the oldest known set of ceramic sculpture. She was no isolated fluke. We find two kilns on the site. They were surrounded by 7000 fired ceramic fragments. Our Stone Age ancestors weren't fooling around. They were seriously producing art objects.
They weren't yet good at firing clay. The objects were heated to 1300oF, and most of them show thermal cracks. These ceramics probably had no practical purpose. They certainly weren't made to last. What we're seeing is art for the moment. It is the strong expression of a few people who developed a technology for showing us what was in their minds.
...
Cave painting preceded the great artistic outpouring of the Gravettian period. In that period, an astonishing range of new techniques joined cave painting. These Czech ceramics were only one of many Gravettian artistic experiments. They weren't followed by better ceramics. They just died out when the people who made them died.
Pots and Crocks
The invention of pottery allowed for more secure storage of food than was provided by baskets or hide pouches, and the vessels could also be used in cooking. The earliest pottery has been thought to have appeared in China and Japan ∼18,000 years ago, several thousands of years before the advent of agriculture. Wu et al. (p. 1696); see the Perspective by Shelach) have now dated broken pieces of pottery from a cave in China, the earliest of which date to ∼20,000 years ago, the time of the Last Glacial Maximum. Scorch marks on many pieces imply that the pottery was used in cooking.
Abstract
The invention of pottery introduced fundamental shifts in human subsistence practices and sociosymbolic behaviors. Here, we describe the dating of the early pottery from Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi Province, China, and the micromorphology of the stratigraphic contexts of the pottery sherds and radiocarbon samples. The radiocarbon ages of the archaeological contexts of the earliest sherds are 20,000 to 19,000 calendar years before the present, 2000 to 3000 years older than other pottery found in East Asia and elsewhere. The occupations in the cave demonstrate that pottery was produced by mobile foragers who hunted and gathered during the Late Glacial Maximum. These vessels may have served as cooking devices. The early date shows that pottery was first made and used 10 millennia or more before the emergence of agriculture.
Would these arguments suggest kingships only emerged after man became vegetarian?A_Gupta wrote:http://science.sciencemag.org/content/336/6089/1696
Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, ChinaPots and Crocks
The invention of pottery allowed for more secure storage of food than was provided by baskets or hide pouches, and the vessels could also be used in cooking. The earliest pottery has been thought to have appeared in China and Japan ∼18,000 years ago, several thousands of years before the advent of agriculture. Wu et al. (p. 1696); see the Perspective by Shelach) have now dated broken pieces of pottery from a cave in China, the earliest of which date to ∼20,000 years ago, the time of the Last Glacial Maximum. Scorch marks on many pieces imply that the pottery was used in cooking.
Abstract
The invention of pottery introduced fundamental shifts in human subsistence practices and sociosymbolic behaviors. Here, we describe the dating of the early pottery from Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi Province, China, and the micromorphology of the stratigraphic contexts of the pottery sherds and radiocarbon samples. The radiocarbon ages of the archaeological contexts of the earliest sherds are 20,000 to 19,000 calendar years before the present, 2000 to 3000 years older than other pottery found in East Asia and elsewhere. The occupations in the cave demonstrate that pottery was produced by mobile foragers who hunted and gathered during the Late Glacial Maximum. These vessels may have served as cooking devices. The early date shows that pottery was first made and used 10 millennia or more before the emergence of agriculture.
Man did not become vegetarian. Man, like monkeys, was "omnivorous". Humans have long intestines like cows - required to digest roots and nuts and shit out lots of fiber. Also man has a lot of flat teeth for grinding and almost no tearing teeth for flesh. So man did not "become vegetarian". He was vegetarian when he got veg food and a meat eater when he got that. That aside flesh eaters generally have wide jaws and throats that allow swallowing of huge chunks. Man can only swallow tablet sized chunks that are created by chewing and chewing and chewing between flat teeth. That is why man also prefers cooked meat.peter wrote: Would these arguments suggest kingships only emerged after man became vegetarian?
So long he consumed fish and lipids and other meats he remained king less?
All these arguments of the type no evidence for this or that is in the category :"Absence of Evidence does not imply ....."
If we believe man to be an animal then turf war over hunting grounds would be common. Lions have a king, so do gorillas and the wolves.shiv wrote:Man did not become vegetarian. Man, like monkeys, was "omnivorous". Humans have long intestines like cows - required to digest roots and nuts and shit out lots of fiber. Also man has a lot of flat teeth for grinding and almost no tearing teeth for flesh. So man did not "become vegetarian". He was vegetarian when he got veg food and a meat eater when he got that. That aside flesh eaters generally have wide jaws and throats that allow swallowing of huge chunks. Man can only swallow tablet sized chunks that are created by chewing and chewing and chewing between flat teeth. That is why man also prefers cooked meat.peter wrote: Would these arguments suggest kingships only emerged after man became vegetarian?
So long he consumed fish and lipids and other meats he remained king less?
All these arguments of the type no evidence for this or that is in the category :"Absence of Evidence does not imply ....."
There are two points to be considered here
1. Agriculture allowed leisure which daily hunting did not
2. Agriculture forced settlements of people in fertile regions to sow, water and harvest crops
That is why communities developed local leaders later called "kings". No proof, but consider that hunter gatherers have to be on the move and have to hunt or forage frequently to keep eating.
Of course hunter gatherers may have had leaders - but they did not have to protect settled territory where crops were being grown. So there is a difference. A king by definition owns and defends territory. He does not run from tree to tree to sleep here one day and somewhere else the next day.
Of course. I mentioned hunter gatherers in my post - they are like wolves. But these animals do not hold territory rigidly. For agriculture territory needs to be held because of fertile soil, and water source. It was fixed, protected settlements that allowed human populations to go up into hundreds and thousands. Lions, gorillas and wolves never lead such numbers. Cattle have huge herds but no fixed territory. Ants have both fixed territory and huge numbers - just like humans. they also have a queen and soldiers.peter wrote:
If we believe man to be an animal then turf war over hunting grounds would be common. Lions have a king, so do gorillas and the wolves.
Besides you don't easily carry pots around. You come back to them.
Our data at Nalanda, Takshila and other universities was destroyed by Ghori, Ghaznavi, etc. Open up your eyes and look around India.by SriJoy
I am simply making an observation from seeing history for decades now- our records-keeping is less qualitative and quantitative than certain other parts of the world in certain time-frames. this is also what overly-politicizes Indian history for part,because our body of raw data is far narrower. It is not about the politics or optics about it, what is pretty clear, is that two main sources of history- periods of Imperial Chinese history ( Han, tang and song) and Roman Empire period of history, have orders of magnitude greater data - data that we have no credible reasons to doubt- such as ledger records, etc- than virtually any other records of pre-modern humanity.
(Jumping into discussion on previous post..so hopefully not out of context)shiv wrote:Man did not become vegetarian. Man, like monkeys, was "omnivorous". Humans have long intestines like cows - required to digest roots and nuts and shit out lots of fiber. Also man has a lot of flat teeth for grinding and almost no tearing teeth for flesh. So man did not "become vegetarian". He was vegetarian when he got veg food and a meat eater when he got that. That aside flesh eaters generally have wide jaws and throats that allow swallowing of huge chunks. Man can only swallow tablet sized chunks that are created by chewing and chewing and chewing between flat teeth. That is why man also prefers cooked meat.peter wrote: Would these arguments suggest kingships only emerged after man became vegetarian?
So long he consumed fish and lipids and other meats he remained king less?
All these arguments of the type no evidence for this or that is in the category :"Absence of Evidence does not imply ....."
There are two points to be considered here
1. Agriculture allowed leisure which daily hunting did not
2. Agriculture forced settlements of people in fertile regions to sow, water and harvest crops
That is why communities developed local leaders later called "kings". No proof, but consider that hunter gatherers have to be on the move and have to hunt or forage frequently to keep eating.
Of course hunter gatherers may have had leaders - but they did not have to protect settled territory where crops were being grown. So there is a difference. A king by definition owns and defends territory. He does not run from tree to tree to sleep here one day and somewhere else the next day.
If you understand what Indian nakshatras are I would request you to explain. Of course I can Google it - but it is possible that you don't know what you are saying. So please explain. There are numerous explanations available - an since you claim to be heavy on accuracy I would be happy to try and hear from you as to what is inaccurate about Indian astronomy, after which we can talk about the accuracy of archeo-astronomySriJoy wrote: 2. Archaeo-astronomy is not reliable anywhere, to my knowledge. Atleast not the Indian 'nakshatras were here in the sky' style.
The information in the following passage has been sourced from David Frawley's book "God's Sages and KingsASTRONOMICAL REFERENCES TO THE REMOTE PAST
Ancient Sanskrit texts have numerous astronomical references that actually refer to dates or eras in the past. But it would not be possible to comprehend this unless one can understand how astronomy, or a study of the stars can give us dates. Most people do not give stars a second glance, although it is difficult to ignore the sun and moon. But we live in an era when dates are fed to us from various electronic sources and calendars are available readily. Stars are less clearly visible today because of light pollution as night skies are brightly lit up by city lights and smog reduces the intensity and clarity of starlight. City skylines prevent the observation of events like sunrise and moonrise. Stars and astronomy by and large play a very minor role in our conscious lives, although all life on earth is fundamentally linked to a star, the sun.
All calendars are derived from the relative movement of the sun or moon with respect to the earth. The sun and moon appear to move across the sky in a cycle that alternates between day and night. From ancient days people have tracked the stars, planets, sun and moon to keep track of time, and every culture retains some memories of how their ancestors tracked time. Such records exist in Sanskrit in the Vedas and post Vedic texts, but it is necessary to learn a little bit about how the Vedic people kept track of time to understand the references to time.
The rotation of the earth causes night and day as different parts of the earth face the sun. The earth also circles around the sun once a year - which is about 365 days (actually it is 365 days 5 hours and 46 minutes). Days and nights are easy to notice, but years are marked by the changing of seasons in an endless cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Seasons are caused because the earth is tilted off to one side like the leaning tower of Pisa and this tilt ensures that the northern half of the earth is tilted towards the sun for half the year, causing the summer season in the north, with long hot days and short pleasant nights, while the southern half has winter. with long cold nights and short days. In the second half of the year, the opposite happens, and the southern half tilts towards the sun and gets its dose of summer while the north gets winter. Exactly in between these two extremes are two days in which both the northern and southern halves of the earth face the sun at equal distance, ensuring that night and day are or equal length. These two days, typically on 22 September and 21st March have a name - called “equinox”. Equinox means “equal night”. 21st march marks the vernal equinox or the beginning of spring, and on the 22nd of September we have the autumnal equinox or the end of summer. And corresponding to these two equinox days are two days when the northern or southern half have a the longest day or night. This day is called a “solstice”, with June 21st being the longest day or summer solstice and December 21st being the shortest day or winter solstice.
Ancient Indians used the vernal equinox or the beginning of spring to mark the start of their new year. This is still followed in India today, and to get an idea of just how long this has been followed we need to look a little more closely at the calendar used in India from Vedic times to the modern day. The calendar used in India is called a “sidereal” calendar. The word sidereal means “compared to the stars” or “using the stars for comparison” The Indian calendar uses distant stars that appear to be fixed in one position as reference points to decide exactly when a year is completed. At the beginning of the year (on the first day of the spring, or vernal equinox), the position of the rising sun is noted in relation to a distant fixed star. The sun will be seen to deviate from this position every day until it returns exactly to this position after one year. That day would mark the beginning of the next year.
The year is divided up into twelve months, but those twelve months are lunar months. Twelve lunar months add up only to 354 days, that is 11 days shorter than a year. Indian tradition follows the lunar months and ancient astronomers realized that this was too inaccurate to keep track of a year, so they kept track of years by following the equinoxes using the sidereal method described earlier. The difference of 11 days or so between the twelve solar months and twelve lunar months was corrected by adding an extra “leap-month” approximately once in three years. This created an acceptably accurate system of keeping the lunar and solar calendars connected and accurate.
In addition to measuring years and months, each day of the year has a star related identity based on the stars or minor constellations (also called asterisms) that can be seen in line with the point at which the moon rises. Asterisms are important in the Indian calendar because there are 27 asterisms visible in the night sky and each of these is associated with a single day of a lunar month. The Indian word for asterism is “nakshatra”. The moon is tracked based on which nakshatra/asterism is visible in line with the point at which the moon rises. Every day, as the month progresses the moon is seen to be associated with a different nakshatra, and at the end of a lunar month the moon is back at the first nakshatra/asterism. This method too has an ancient record and is known from the time of the Rig Veda.
However the sidereal system of keeping track of the year by correlating the position of the sun with a fixed star leads to a slight error in the date of the equinoxes and solstices. Over a span of many centuries the link between the seasons and the month in which they occur will change. This error arises from a little complication in the way the earth wobbles as it rotates. It is a slow wobble that completes one cycle in about 26,000 years, This wobble is called “precession”. In the last 1,800 years precession has cause the Indian calendar to move the equinoxes so that the real equinox occurs about 3 weeks ahead of the equinox predicted by the sidereal calendar. For this reason the Indian calendar has been periodically adjusted over many centuries to keep the sidereal year synchronised with the solar year. This was done simply by re-assigning the month at which the year starts to correspond with the day of the real vernal equinox . It is most convenient to do this approximately every 2,000 years or so when the beginning of the year can be marked by the adjacent Zodiac sign/constellation. What this means is that the Hindu calendar will show “steps” of about 2,000 years based on which Zodiac star sign the year began with.
The naming of days, months, phases of the moon, equinoxes and solstices in relation to recognizable stars has a very interesting side effect. If a few critical details naming the month, moon phase and time of year (solstice or equinox) are found, the combination turns out to be a unique one that can pinpoint the date of the observation anytime in the last 26,000 years just as surely as one might say “26th November 2008”.
Ancient records in the Vedas and post Vedic texts show that the start of the year, or vernal equinox has been marked in the distant past by different stars than are used today. This gives us dates going back to 3,000 BC and even earlier in some references. The vernal equinox, which is in the Uttarabhadra nakshatra today, in Bharani in 1,280 BC at the time of the Vedanga Jyotish. There are Vedic textual references to the vernal equinox in Kritika nakshatra (2,250 BC), Mriga-shira nakshatra (4,000 BC) and Punar-vasu nakshatra in 6,000 BC. Other references in the Brahmana texts refer to a Magha nakshatra full moon on the day of the winter solstice, dating back to 3,000 BC.
There is no way of proving that. However - unless a calculation is done with some accuracy, or tables exist for the "retrodictions" going back several millennia and an adequately well informed person does the "retrodiction" the date is likely to end up being nonsensical and have no connection with what can be correlated as accurate using modern day calendars and computing. Perhaps Nilesh Oak may be able to throw more light on this.A_Gupta wrote:^^^ Once the precession of the equinoxes is known, how does one know that references to the distant past are not retrodictions (predictions made backwards in time), but actual observations?
This (and its extended version) is what I have been afraid to ask Nileshji. But now that the Mullah Shivullah has given this fatwa let me pose it.the combination turns out to be a unique one that can pinpoint the date of the observation anytime in the last 26,000 years
Integral of {f(x,y,z,t)}[over the range of t from -26,000 to 0]dt = Y.
Integral of {g(t)}[over the range of t from -26,000 to 0]dt = Y.
At the end the Brophejar says: (1) Ancient Indians used multiple points for the beginning of calendars. Alternately stated, they had multiple calendars. They could be variously named as 'Varsha' (one that possibly began with the onset of Varsha - monsoon- Summer solstice), Samvatsar (possibly that began with equinoxes) and we also have evidence for year beginning with winter solstice. So, in short...some type of time keeping beginning with each of the cardinal points (2 equinoxes and 2 solstices).
Ancient Indians used the vernal equinox or the beginning of spring to mark the start of their new year. This is still followed in India today, and to get an idea of just how long this has been followed we need to look a little more closely at the calendar used in India from Vedic times to the modern day. The calendar used in India is called a “sidereal” calendar. The word sidereal means “compared to the stars” or “using the stars for comparison” The Indian calendar uses distant stars that appear to be fixed in one position as reference points to decide exactly when a year is completed. At the beginning of the year (on the first day of the spring, or vernal equinox), the position of the rising sun is noted in relation to a distant fixed star. The sun will be seen to deviate from this position every day until it returns exactly to this position after one year. That day would mark the beginning of the next year.
The reference to Intercalation (Adhik masa) exists in Rigveda and many other texts.The year is divided up into twelve months, but those twelve months are lunar months. Twelve lunar months add up only to 354 days, that is 11 days shorter than a year. Indian tradition follows the lunar months and ancient astronomers realized that this was too inaccurate to keep track of a year, so they kept track of years by following the equinoxes using the sidereal method described earlier. The difference of 11 days or so between the twelve solar months and twelve lunar months was corrected by adding an extra “leap-month” approximately once in three years. This created an acceptably accurate system of keeping the lunar and solar calendars connected and accurate.
In addition to measuring years and months, each day of the year has a star related identity based on the stars or minor constellations (also called asterisms) that can be seen in line with the point at which the moon rises. Asterisms are important in the Indian calendar because there are 27 asterisms visible in the night sky and each of these is associated with a single day of a lunar month. The Indian word for asterism is “nakshatra”. The moon is tracked based on which nakshatra/asterism is visible in line with the point at which the moon rises. Every day, as the month progresses the moon is seen to be associated with a different nakshatra, and at the end of a lunar month the moon is back at the first nakshatra/asterism. This method too has an ancient record and is known from the time of the Rig Veda.
Not correct. you may remove it.However the sidereal system of keeping track of the year by correlating the position of the sun with a fixed star leads to a slight error in the date of the equinoxes and solstices.
While it makes sense to do it about every ~2000 years (~2160) if one uses 12 point Zodiac system, since Ancient Indians used 'nakshatra' that corresponds to about ~13 degree (instead of Zodiac of ~30 degree space), the timing of correction (when such references are found in ancient indian works) can be estimated with more precision (.e.g ~ 900-1000 years).It is most convenient to do this approximately every 2,000 years or so when the beginning of the year can be marked by the adjacent Zodiac sign/constellation. What this means is that the Hindu calendar will show “steps” of about 2,000 years based on which Zodiac star sign the year began with.
[/quote]The naming of days, months, phases of the moon, equinoxes and solstices in relation to recognizable stars has a very interesting side effect. If a few critical details naming the month, moon phase and time of year (solstice or equinox) are found, the combination turns out to be a unique one that can pinpoint the date of the observation anytime in the last 26,000 years just as surely as one might say “26th November 2008”.
Good intentions (respected Shir Vamdev Shastri), bad scholarship.Ancient records in the Vedas and post Vedic texts show that the start of the year, or vernal equinox has been marked in the distant past by different stars than are used today. This gives us dates going back to 3,000 BC and even earlier in some references. The vernal equinox, which is in the Uttarabhadra nakshatra today, in Bharani in 1,280 BC at the time of the Vedanga Jyotish. There are Vedic textual references to the vernal equinox in Kritika nakshatra (2,250 BC), Mriga-shira nakshatra (4,000 BC) and Punar-vasu nakshatra in 6,000 BC. Other references in the Brahmana texts refer to a Magha nakshatra full moon on the day of the winter solstice, dating back to 3,000 BC.
UB jiUlanBatori wrote:
This (and its extended version) is what I have been afraid to ask Nileshji. But now that the Mullah Shivullah has given this fatwa let me pose it.
Now we get to another of these assumptions.various 'Yugas' of mankind, which itself is older than species homo sapiens.
Note that Avataras 1-4 are not Homo Sapien. #4 was getting there, but only halfway.The Lawd Gawd Made Man in His Own Image
and took a rib out of Adam and made Eve
What have you been reading or rather not reading? Before Aryabhat there were many observers ......SriJoy wrote:......
It must be noted too that ancient Indians were wrong about stellar observations in one critical way: they did not have a heliocentric world. Aryabhatiya clearly shows a geocentric model with epicycles as their concept of stellar motion.