At the outset, I would like to compliment Prof. Narahari Achar and other scholars who made their contributions to a unique international symposium held in Bangalore in 2003. The symposium focused on the astronomical references contained in the Great Epic, Mahabharata and to deliberate on the determination of the calendar dates of events connoted by the astronomical references.
One compilation lists over 150 astronomical references in the Critical edition of Mahabharata.
One of the contributions which has received sustained attention is that of Prof. Narahari Achar who used planetaria software to simulate selected astronomical references which had a bearing on the chronology of events of the Great Epic.
Subsequent to the feedback including critiques and comments made on this contribution, Prof. Narahari Achar has provided 11 pages of detailed responses .
These are presented in this post to clarify issues on data, interpretation of texts and method used which will be of interest to scholars and researchers on Hindu civilization which flourished on the banks of River Sarasvati. The River is celebrated in a great event held every 12 years on Makara Sankranti day which fell in 2013 on 14 January 2013, the day the Mahakumbha mela which began in Prayag, Allahabad, the confluence of Rivers Sarasvati, Yamuna and Ganga.
Geological issues related to River Sarasvati are debated separately. See the blogpost: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/01/sarasvati-was-himalayan-river-ks.html Sarasvati was a Himalayan River -- KS Valdiya (2013) rejects Giosan et al arguments
The chronology debate on Hindu civilization goes on, like the stream of revived River Sarasvati which now flows upto Gedra Road in Barmer Dist. in the Thar desert, en route to join River Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. Pilgrims look forward to a day when they can have a dip in the sacred river when she reaches Ahmedabad in the next few years.
Kalyanaraman
http://www.scribd.com/doc/120408546/Response-to-feedback-on-date-of-MB-war-Narahari-Achar-January-2013
Response to feedback on date of MB war (Narahari Achar, January 2013) by kalyan974696
Mirror:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/141673565/Response-to-feedback-on-date-of-MB-war-_January-2013_
Response to feedback on date of MB war _January 2013_
B.N.Narahari Achar had presented the date of Mahabharata war and related observed events described in the epic with extraordinary accuracy by Veda Vyasa in an international colloquium (January 2003). http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/colloquium/narahari01.htm Further researches by him have established the Mahabharata as the sheet-anchor of the history of Bharatam. The textual references (Critical edition of Bhandarkar Institute) of observed events are related to either planets or comets. http://tinyurl.com/k2hhd In this note (July 2006), Achar establishes that some references are emphatically to comets (mentioned as such in the text itself; graha means both 'planet' and 'comet' and has to be interpreted in context). This brilliant insight resolves the centuries' old problem of apparent inconsistencies within the critical edition of the text. In fact, there are no inconsistencies. Mahabharata is astonishingly accurate, making it the most authentic historical document in human civilizational history. Continuing the path-breaking use of planetarium software (of the type used by NASA to launch satellites for probe missions into cosmos), Achar also validates the date of Nirvana of the Buddha. This date is consistent with the Tibetan Bauddha tradition which notes that Gautama the Buddha lived in 19th century BCE. The skymaps of the 3067 and 1807 BCE map the important dates in Hindu civilization: the Great War and the Nirvana of the Buddha, respectively. It was indeed a privilege to be present in the WAVES 2006 conference (July 8 to 10, 2006) at Houston, Tx when Narahari Achar made the breath-taking presentations of skymaps. With characteristic humility (vidyaa vinaya sampannaa), Achar noted that work is in progress to reclaim the chronology of Bharatam. The late Dr. Raja Ramanna, nuclear scientist, who presided over the Jan. 2003 colloquium noted that the astronomical references in the Mahabharata were observed events (not computed as a panchanga). Methinks, Achar has already achieved the reclaiming of the chronology for two key dates of hindu civilization, with clinching, reproducible evidence of planetaria software. Now, it is time to depict these skymaps on planetaria all over the world for viewers to see the methods of most accurate dating of events in history of civilizations. Of course, researches will continue to re-visit the identification of Sandracottas. Given the duplicity of William Jones (now appearing with a skull-cap on a marble panel on a chapel at Oxford College), the assumptions made by indologists about Greek sources have to be verified, again. As Reagan said about Russian missiles' reduction: trust, but verify. See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/01/a-critical-examination-of-astronomical.htmlA Critical Examination of the Astronomical References in Mahabharata and Their Simulation by Planetarium Software (Narahari Achar, 2003)