Astronomical References in Mahabharata: Did Mahabharata war really happen? (Part 1)

The Mahabharata War, also called the Kurukshetra War, is a war described in the Hindu epic  Mahabharata (also the longest epic in the history of literature). The conflict arose from a dynastic succession struggle between two groups of cousins, the Kauravas and Pandavas, for the throne of Hastinapura in a kingdom called Kuru of the great Bharata.

Perhaps the most convincing evidence of this war comes from astronomical references found in the text of Mahabharata. Dr. Narhari Acharya, Professor of Physics in the University of Memphis, has so far found 140 astronomical references in the epic. Dr Acharya used a software Planetarium to generate night skies as it would appear at any time in the past and painstakingly reproduced every reference he found in the text. The software Planetarium accurately generates night skies of past, present and future (more about this on Dr Acharya's paper found under published works in his directory of the University of Memphis).

"It turns out that the types of astronomical references referred to in the epic consists of muhurtas, tithis, eclipses, comets and conjunctions of planets with different stars," Dr Acharya said in an interview.

In the Bhismaparva, Bhagwan Ved Vyasa Maharishi meets with the blind king Dhritrastra on the eve of the war and recites to him the omens he had seen. The omens predict the eminent war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas and the terrible events that will befall in Kuru and general population. 

Most significant of these omens is the appearance of two fiery comets, described in the text as two glowing red headed grahas with fiery tail. 

"People generally take the word grahas as planets but Vyasa here refers to comets, because no planet has such feature," Dr Acharya said. "Grahau tamravara sakhau, prajwalitahu ubhau."

The mention of two such comets happening at the same time is not only in Bhismaparva but also in Udyogaparva. Four omens are mentioned in total: 

1) Saturn was at the star Aldebaran

2) Mars performed retrograde motion near the star Antares.

3) Lunar Eclipse in the month of Kartika occurring at the star Pleiades, followed by 

4) Solar Eclipse at the star Antares

"Modern archaeologists have given the date of Mahabharata from 3500 BCE to 500 CE, which is a span of 4000 years," he said. "In that period of time I found 137 conjunctions where Saturn was at the star Aldebaran."

Even now the position of Saturn at star Aldebaran is considered to be ominous. When it last happened, it was the month of September 11 of 2001 A.D. 

When Dr Acharya took the retrograde motion of Mars into account, 137 conjunctions narrowed down to 17 conjunctions. In those conjunctions there were only two conjunctions when lunar eclipse occurred, on 2183 BC and 3067 BC. 

"I thought I could cross out one date considering solar eclipse but it turned out both Lunar eclipse in the month of Kartika at star Pleiades was followed by solar eclipse at the star Antares," Dr Acharya said. 

Luckily, the text mentions amawasya raat (details of this on Dr Acharya's published paper), which is the period of new moon, occurred during the war, which means the phase of moon was waxing phase. in 2183 BC, the phase of moon was waning, so the date of the war was narrowed down to the October of 3067 BC, which almost matches the date mentioned in the text itself.

This is by far the most compelling evidence on the great war of Mahabharata war, when Bhagwan Shree Krishna sang the divine song, the sacred Bhagawad Geeta or summary of the very sacred Vedas. 

In the coming posts, I will write about some other astronomical evidences and the fate of Dwarika, the lost city, as analysed from scientific and archaeological methods.