LORD KRISHNA’S BIRTH-DATE
Krishna (b. July 21, 3228 BC)
Author: Smita Mitra
Publication: Outlook
Date: September 13, 2004
URL: www.outlookindia.com
Introduction: With some deft computer astrology, mythic Krishna gets a date of birth, and some planetary influence
Even gods come to earth with their destinies chalked out for them. So claims astrology, at any rate.
So when Arun K. Bansal, the father of computer astrology in India, says that Hindu god Krishna was born on July 21, 3228 BC, it feels momentous somehow. The date essentially transforms Krishna in our minds: from a mythological figure of mystery, even if a much-loved one, into well a flesh and blood entity. You can almost see him gurgling in Yashoda’s lap as Rishi Garg performs his naming ceremony in a cow shed more than 50 centuries ago.
But backtracking into the past can be a sloppy misadventure if you don’t get your calculations right. So Bansal rests his claims on two of his software packages-the Leo Gold and the Palm computer programmes. They can simulate any planetary configuration that has occurred or could occur in time.
All they need is a date. And July 21, 3228 bc, according to Bansal, satisfies every condition described during Krishna’s birth.
Krishna was born in the Rohini nakshatra, in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada, on the 8th day of the waning moon at midnight. Bansal says this was enough information for him to nail the date, working backwards from Krishna’s death, which he says occurred at 2 pm on February 18, 3102 BC.
His entire case rests on the accuracy of this date, however. Bansal quotes extensively from the Shrimad Bhagwat and the Shri Vishnu Puranas, old Hindu calendars and the Mahabharata to illuminate the clues he chose to follow. “A shloka in the 38th chapter of the Shri Vishnu Puran, says that Kaliyuga started on the day Krishna died.” He unearths another shloka in the Shrimad Bhagwat Purana (part 11, chapter 6) where Brahma himself speaks to Krishna about how old he is. “Brahma says that 125 years have passed since Krishna’s birth; this is just before Krishna plans his death.”
Though not empirically verifiable, the advent of Kaliyuga is traditionally taken to be 3102 bc, because all our panchangas or astrological journals maintain that 5,100 years of Kaliyuga had passed before 1999 AD. The belief is supported by mathematician Aryabhatta’s astronomy treatise Aryabhattiya, the Surya Siddhanta, an astronomical text that dates back to 400 AD, and a 5th century inscription from a temple in Aihole.
Deleting 125 years from the date, Bansal figured Krishna was born either in 3327 or 3228 BC. The rest he left up to his software, merely feeding in the planetary configuration that Krishna was supposedly born under, to generate the row of figures that conforms to the epochal moment.
Would astrology have thrown any light on what such an individual may have been like? Outlook asked Bansal to create a birth chart based on the date. His computer churns out 15 pages sectioned under tantalising headings like Love & Romance, Appearance, Personality, and Journeys. With Saturn in his seventh house, he would have been fated to court many women-enter Radha, the gopis and later his 16,108 wives. But since the seventh house was also under the sign of Scorpio, which guarantees a joyful marital life, he’d also have had the power to keep them happy despite having to divide his attentions among them.
An attractive appearance and personality would have come from the exalted moon under the sign of Taurus. Jupiter and the exalted Mercury in the fifth house will have conferred intelligence and oratory skills. Fame and power would have come from Ketu in the 9th house, though it would also have forced him to lead a life away from his birthplace.
Certainly stray statements do conform eerily to Krishna’s attributed qualities. “Endowed with a glowing complexion, you have bright eyes and an enchanting smile.” Under personality comes-“You have great fancy for music, moonlight and money”.
Even the Bhagwad Gita seems to have its origin in his birth chart; it predicts that a person born under this astral spread would have been a great believer in karma who would advise others about karma and noble deeds.
But there are a few adverse planetary configurations to contend with. The chart describes a life of continuous strife, peppered with battles and wars because Rahu, Mars and Venus are in the third house. Due to the location of Jupiter in Leo, he would also have been destined to be estranged from his mother-or mothers in his case.
With plans to announce the results of his research at the Somnath temple during this year’s Janmashtami festival for Krishna’s birthday, Bansal says that even the temple’s priests concur with his findings. “Another pandit, Shri Gyananda Saraswati in Benaras, who will come to the celebration in Somnath, has also come up with the same dates.”
At peace with his research, Bansal prefers to turn a blind eye to the long, long line of astrologers, godmen, NASA scientists, mathematicians and writers stretching all the way back to Aryabhatta who have worked on the same thing. They all quote the same scriptures, taking into account some or all of the astral happenings recorded in great detail, especially the ones during the calamitous time of the Mahabharata war, when Krishna was said to have been 90 years old. These include rare astronomical happenings like the solar and lunar eclipse that occurred consecutively in the space of a month just before the war, a fortnight that lasted only for 13 days instead of 15 when the moon was waning, and a comet that burned through the skies. Also, the planetary positions recorded during the Mahabharata war were roughly replicated 36 years later, when Krishna died.
Most scholars prefer to concentrate on the Mahabharata war where a significant cluster of astronomical events occurred, before zooming onto their own set of dates that binds down the life of the eighth avatar of Vishnu in a specific time-frame. But the dates, while drawn from the same source, strain in opposite directions.
At a colloquium organised by the Mythic Society in Bangalore in January last year, dates as wide as 1478 BC to 3067 BC were proposed. Contributors included S. Balakrishna (from NASA, US), using Lodestar Pro software, who proposed 2559 bc as the start of the war. Prof R.N. Iyengar (from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) brought the event closer historically, suggesting the date 1478 bc, while B.N. Narahari Achar (Department of Physics, University of Memphis, US) after “critically examining” the astronomical events in the Mahabharata pointed to 3067 BC.
Authors like P.V. Vartak push back the date of the Mahabharata much further, to 5561 BC. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, in his book, The True History and the Religion of India, comes up with the same dates as Bansal does.
Considering that there are 150 astronomical references provided about the characters and events in the Mahabharata in one lakh-odd shlokas, there is little consensus on what information is worth concentrating on. In addition, there is reason to believe that our scriptures “grew” over time, incorporating events of every period. So there is precious little we can attribute collectively to one age. Many scholars in fact wonder if all the references to Krishna in the scriptures refer to one person or whether the Krishna of Vrindavan and the Krishna of the Mahabharata are two different people. But then searching for that mythical date wouldn’t be half as engaging if the process weren’t so complicated. Any wonder that even though the gods have destinies, they prefer we view them through fogged glasses?
Source: http://www.hvk.org/articles/0904/29.html
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Niradhara answers Nand
When was Lord Ram Born ???
Please let me know if you have the answer with some backing.
If not, then please treat this as a research project.
This is a question that will get you a different answer from anyone you ask. I inquired to the director of my home Ashram who had the answer direct from our Guru, years ago…
Guru-ji said: The most honest answer that can be given with authenticity it to remind you that we are living in Kali-yuga (432,000 yrs long- we have just begun this period 6,000-7,000 yrs ago). Before this yuga there was the Dvapara-yuga, 864,000 yrs long. Lord Ram was born before that yuga in Treta-yuga. Three-fourths of this Yuga were for dharma and the last part was given to adharma. In the larger picture, the Dharma bull, which symbolizes morality, still stood on three legs during this period. It had all four in the Satya Yuga (1,728,000 yrs long) and two in the later Dvapara Yuga. Currently, in the age of Kali, it stands on one leg.
Ramayana events precede the Mahabharata and Lord Ram was born before the period of adharma and so that would place him in the early to middle part of this 1,296,000 year long period. Some people say that Lord Ram is born in the early part of the Treta-yuga but place that date at 7,323 BCE. This would be incorrect. The early part of Treta-yuga would mean over 2,600,000 yrs ago more accurately. 2,580,000 BCE if anyone counts BCE back that far. In other words this Lord Ram, 7th avatar of Vishnu, whether or not you believe in his historical life, predates secular history and so can be attributed to mystical, metaphorical and numerological significance as well.
Peace & Purpose –
NirAdhArADid Krishna exist?Most certainly, says Dr Manish Pandit, a nuclear medicine physician who teaches in the United Kingdom, proffering astronomical, archaeological, linguistic and oral evidences to make his case.”I used to think of Krishna is a part of Hindu myth and mythology. Imagine my surprise when I came across Dr Narhari Achar (a professor of physics at the University of Memphis, Tennessee, in the US) and his research in 2004 and 2005. He had done the dating of the Mahabharata war using astronomy. I immediately tried to corroborate all his research using the regular Planetarium software and I came to the same conclusions [as him],” Pandit says.Which meant, he says, that what is taught in schools about Indian history is not correct?The Great War between the Pandavas and the Kauravas took place in 3067 BC, the Pune-born Pandit, who did his MBBS from BJ Medical College there, says in his first documentary, Krishna: History or Myth?.Pandit’s calculations say Krishna was born in 3112 BC, so must have been 54-55 years old at the time of the battle of Kurukshetra.Pandit is also a distinguished astrologer, having written several books on the subject, and claims to have predicted that Sonia Gandhi would reject prime ministership, the exact time at which Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati would be released on bail and also the Kargil war.Pandit, as the sutradhar of the documentary Krishna: History or Myth?, uses four pillars — archaeology, linguistics, what he calls the living tradition of India and astronomy to arrive at the circumstantial verdict that Krishna was indeed a living being, because Mahabharata and the battle of Kurukshetra indeed happened, and since Krishna was the pivot of the Armageddon, it is all true.You are a specialist in nuclear medicine. What persuaded you to do a film on the history/myth of Krishna? You think there are too many who doubt? Is this a politico-religious message or a purely religious one?We are always taught that Krishna is a part of Hindu myth and mythology. And this is exactly what I thought as well. But imagine my surprise when I came across Dr Narhari Achar (of the Department of Physics at the University of Memphis, Tennessee, in the US) and his research somewhere in 2004 and 2005. He had done the dating of the Mahabharata war using astronomy.I immediately tried to corroborate all his research using the regular Planetarium software and I came to the same conclusions. This meant that what we are taught in schools about Indian history is not correct.I also started wondering about why this should be so. I think that a mixture of the post-colonial need to conform to western ideas of Indian civilisation and an inability to stand up firmly to bizarre western ideas are to blame. Also, any attempt at a more impartial look at Indian history is given a saffron hue.I decided that I could take this nonsense no more, and decided to make films to show educated Indians what their true heritage was. The pen is mightier than the sword is an old phrase but I thought of new one: Film is the new pen.Any ideas I have will receive wide dissemination through this medium.I wanted to present a true idea of Indian history unfettered by perception, which was truly scientific, not just somebody’s hypothesis coloured by their perceptions and prejudices.Why not a documentary on Rama, who is more controversial in India today? Proof of his existence would certainly be more than welcome today…A documentary on Rama is forthcoming in the future. But the immediate reason I deferred that project is the immense cost it would entail. Whereas research on Krishna and Mahabharata was present and ready to go.Further more, Rama according to Indian thought, existed in the long hoary ancient past of Treta Yuga, where science finds it difficult to go……3067 BC is when the Mahabharata war took place, says Dr Achar. How did he arrive at this?There are more than 140 astronomy references in the Mahabharata. Dr Achar used simulations of the night sky to arrive at November 22, 3067 BC, as the day the Mahabharata war began.He used the references common to Udyoga and Bhisma Parvan initially, and so Saturn at Rohini, Mars at Jyestha with initially only the two eclipses, Lunar at Kartika and Solar at Jyestha.Let me tell you how rare this set of astronomical conjunctions is.The Saros cycle of eclipses is periodic at 19 years and so is the Metonic cycle of lunar phases.So if I say that Amavasya has occured at Jyestha, then this will occur again in 19 years, but if I say that a solar eclipse has occured at Jyestha, then this occurs again at Jyestha only after 340 years. Add Saturn at Rohini and we take this to 1 in 7,000 years. This set of conjunctions takes all of these into consideration, but also takes all the other data into consideration.So now, we know about Balarama’s pilgrimage tithis and nakshatras, and believe it or not, all that fits the 3067 BC date perfectly.And to top it all, so does the repetition of the three eclipses described at the destruction of Dwarka 36 years later.This would explain why so many other researchers tried and failed to find the date of the Mahabharata war as it is based on such a unique set of astronomy that it occured only once in the last 10,000 years.So essentially, your thesis is that since the Mahabharata war actually happened, as confirmed by astronomical deduction, Krishna was also a living entity since he’s the fulcrum of the Great War?Not just that, but the fact that archaeology, oral and living traditions point to the same. And yes, we cannot separate the Mahabharata war from Krishna. If one is shown to have happened, then the other must be true as well……There is talk of a banyan tree which the documentary says was a witness to the Battle of Kurukshetra, where 4 million people are said to have died in 14 days. Where exactly does this exist? Has the tree been carbon-dated to confirm its age?There is indeed a banyan tree at Jyotisaar in Kurukshetra which is worshipped as such. This concept is similar to the tree in Jerusalem, which is thought to have witnessed Jesus’s arrival. Carbon-dating of this banyan tree is unlikely to give any concrete answers. I have included it in the documentary to show the living tradition of India — like worship of the Ganges cannot be carbon-dated to give any answers.There is a gentleman named Ram Prasad Birbal, who said he has found many bones which are said to belong to the Kurukshetra battle. Has this been scientifically proved?Ram Prasad Birbal is a resident of Kurukshetra. I am not aware of carbon dating of those bones. But I am informed that thermo-luminescent dating of other relics as well as carbon-dating at other sites in Kurukshetra have given dates far older than the Indus valley civilisation. Further, Euan Mackie, an eminent archaeologist, had found a clay tablet of Krishna’s Yamalaarjuna episode at Mohenjedaro, a site of the Indus Valley civilisation proving that even in 2200 BC, there was a culture of worshipping Krishna.You said Hinduism spread across South East Asia in those times … how big was this religious empire?The Hindu religious empire extended across the whole of the Asian sub-continent to South East Asia, from Afghanistan to Thailand (where Ramayana and Krishna are still shown through dances), Burma, Cambodia (Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon, etc), Vietnam, Laos (little Kurukshetra and temples), Malaysia (which was Hindu until recent) up to Java (more temples), Bali (where Hinduism is still the religion) and Indonesia, where Bhima’s grandson is said to have performed a thousand fire rituals at Yogyakarta. Afghanistan was of course home to both the Yadu race and Shakuni (Kandahar or Gandhar).Dr Achar said the Kurukshetra war must not have happened on a full moon day…The Mahabharata war did not start on an Amavasya. That is straight forward.Krishna tells Karna “Saptama chappi divasat Amavasya Bhivasyati” and says that Karna should tell Drona and Bhisma to do the ayudha (weapons) pooja on that date. But not start fighting the war on that date.…Your documentary says India did not have a tradition of putting down everything in writing till 325 BC, when Alexander the Great arrived. How did you come to this conclusion?This is what the current scientific belief is. Although people have talked about deciphering the Indus Valley “script”, there is no straightforward conclusion about the same, so we stuck to the “official line” there. We will deal with these issues in a future documentary.S R Rao, the marine archaeologist from the National Institute of Oceanography, found a 9th century building, and an entire city. Where was this and when did he find it?.S R Rao found the sunken city of Dwarka a few years ago at Beyt Dwarka in the early 1990s.Apparently, this city near Dwarka was set up 36 years after the Mahabharata war. Is this the summation of Rao?It is believed that due to damage and destruction by the sea, Dwaraka has submerged six times and the modern-day Dwarka is the 7th such city to be built in the area. Scientifically speaking, we see that 36 years after the war there were the same repetitions of an eclipse triad as we have shown in the documentary.From Dwarka to Kurukshetra is more than 1,000 km. How do you think Krishna travelled to help the Pandavas?As a scientist, I believe that they travelled on horses which would enable them to reach pretty quickly. If you consider 1,000 km, that should take him 7 days if he had a string of horses. Of course if you take faith into account, then it could happen in a twinkling of an eye.What’s the link between the two comets that Sage Vyasa talked about, the retrograde motion of Mars (Mangal or Kuja) at Antares (Jyestha) to all thisThe idea that comets are harbingers of doom is well-documented. The thing is that there is a set of statements describing comets and their positions. Only Dr Achar has arrived at the correct deduction, that those sentences in Bhisma Parvan relate to comets, not planets — which is where previous researchers found it difficult.We know that Halley’s comet was seen in that year as well.Dr Achar interpreted verses from the Bhism Parvan and Udyog Parvan to arrive at various conclusions. One of them is that when Saturn in at Aldebaran (Rohini) it brings great bad tidings. The last time this happened was in September 2001, when 9/11 happened. When does this happen next?Actually Saturn at Rohini is long known to be a bad omen by astrologers. Rohinim Pidyannesha Stitho Rajan Shanischarah. This transit happened in 1971 where a million or so were killed, and again in 2001 September, when 9/11 happened. The next time is in 2030/2031 AD approximately.When is the next time Mars will be in Antares?Mars at Jyestha has to be taken in conjunction with the other things mentioned by Karna when he talks to Krishna, as it occurs every year. In any case, those people were great astronomers and not just warriors, so we don’t know what the extent of their knowledge was regarding these events, In my personal humble opinion it was perhaps even better than that which we have today.Contact Dr Pandit at manish@saraswatifilms.org
Shakun Kimatrai 