Indian calendar: scientific aspects

Download or read book Indian calendar: scientific aspects written by C. K. Raju and published by C. K. Raju. This book was released on 2024-11-29 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today children learn their birthday only on the Christian calendar, because colonial education, being church education, teaches that calendar as its first lesson. That Gregorian calendar is inferior and unscientific, e.g. with haphazard months of 28, 29, 30, and 31 days, unrelated to any natural cycle. But children are NOT taught any alternative, on the “blinkered horse” strategy, to prevent a comparison, and force them to accept that inferior but propagandist calendar. This book explains how the Indian calendar provides a superior and scientific alternative, on which children can learn their जन्मतिथि, and why तिथि ≠ day. Children will also learn how to determine the dates of Indian festivals such as Holi and Diwali, puzzling since moveable on the Christian calendar. And perhaps stand up and question why the dates of the two secular Indian festivals are defined only on the Christian calendar. Indian astronomy, since ancient times, was scientific, and this book focuses on those scientific aspects, also explaining how science was missing in Graeco-Roman and Western tradition until the 16th c. Ever since the Vedanga Jyotish, the word jyotish meant scientific timekeeping, through astronomy, though the word jyotish is today confounded with phalit jyotish or astrology. A season missing on the Gregorian calendar is the rainy season vitally important for Indian economy, culture, and for the entire reproductive cycle on the subcontinent.