Experience Of The Macrocosm

Subject: Ancient Yoga Wisdom: Seasonal and sidereal solar year as different experiences of the Cosmos – Can there be a time structure for human breathing? 1. Introduction Present write up is a short note on a piece of ancient wisdom that hitherto remained unnoticed to the modern scholars, researchers in history of science and astronomy as well as modern preceptors of ancient disciplines like Yoga. Astronomy, ancient and modern speaks of different solar years depending on the way in which the solar motion is configured – 1. Recurring equinoxes and solstices or the seasons giving rise to the seasonal solar year or tropical year = 365.242195 days 2. Year length measured on the basis of a stellar reference point giving us the sidereal solar year = 365.2563624 days. 3. Year length based on solar anomaly or the constant speed of Sun, referred to as the anomalistic solar year = 365.259562 days It is well known that the seasonal year is reflective of the season cycles with reference to the cardinal points and is thus a visible expression of the earth's rotation around sun on its oblique axis. Anomalistic year likewise is based on perihelion or aphelion transit and caused the slow and fast arcs of earth's revolution round the sun and could have been experienced in terms of the varying number of days between the cardinal points, viz., equinoxes and solstices. When we think of the sidereal year, it is an abstraction based on a choice of stellar reference and apparently not related to any experience in terms of seasons or other natural phenomena or orbital motion aspects. Origin of an abstract year or artificial reckoning in antiquity is highly improbable given our notions of the development and state of science in antiquity. 2. Sidereal solar year as experience of the Cosmos through breathing It is understandable from the Yoga cannons that the rationale that guided the abstraction of time as a wheel of 21600 minutes of arc is the human breathing process. Aryabhata mentions this aspect as “prānenaiti kalām bhūh” meaning ‘Earth rotates 1 minute of arc in a breath’ and thus we may identify the number 21600 = ‘360 x 60 ghatis’ or 6 x 60 x 60 as the number of breaths in a day divided into 60 ghatis or 60 x 60 vighatis. Most of the historians of mathematics have missed the import of the ‘prana’ relation in leading to the formulation of the sexagesimal system. Georges Ifrah’s work on the history of numbers (Penguin) has discussed the various theories on the origin of ‘base 60’ and none gives a satisfying explanation. But in discussing the Babylonian mystic notions, Ifrah mentions that the ancient Babylonian astronomers/priests assigned the number 60 to Sun while the sacred number assigned to Earth was 50. Little arithmetic with the above numbers like 50, 60 and the 21600, leads us to some interesting relationships between the different values of solar year. 1

(a) 50 arc seconds equaled the annual precession rate (b) Ratio (50/60) gave the precession in arc in minutes in a year (c) 60x60 seconds of arc (=10)/50" = 72 = 60x60/50 (d) 21600 x 60/50 = 25920 = Precession cycle of the Seasons


Considering breath as a time unit defined as 1/21600 of a day, we can write: (e) Anomalistic – Sidereal year = 60 breaths [365.25636 + (60/21600) = 365.25914] Or (f) Anomalistic – Sidereal year = 50 breaths [365.2563624 + (60/21600) = 365.2586772] (g) Sidereal – Seasonal year = 300 breaths [365.2563624 - (300/21600) = 365.24247] (h) Anomalistic – Seasonal length = 360 breaths [365.2422 + (360/21600) = 365.25885)]

It is important to note here that the extra-long sidereal year that we find attested in Indian and Babylonian astronomy is 365.25875 days and this is very close to 365.24219 + (360/21600) = 365.25885 days. Value obtained at (f) above of 365.25868 is the same as the year length of Aryabhata as given in Āryabhatīyam. We can also see that 21600 of the anomalistic years exceeding by 360 breaths equaled 25920 of seasonal years and vice versa. Also, we may note that – 50/60 = 300/360 = 21600/25920 and the fraction 0.8333 represented the longitude 3000, the point of symmetry on the Zodiac or dividing line between the Saturnian houses Capricorn and Aquarius. 3. What does this arithmetic of sacred numbers mean? This arithmetic of sacred numbers mean that the sexagesimal system and the 21600' division of the ecliptic circle arose out of the experience of the Cosmos via breathing by the Babylonian priests or Yogis of the ancient Past. Number 50 credited to Earth as sacred in Babylonian arithmetic represented the precession of equinoxes vis-à-vis seasons and represented the root of the large cycle of 25920 years. On the other hand 60 credited to Sun as sacred represented the experience of the cosmos by human breathing and represented a cycle of 21600 years which equaled 25920 years of shorter length. In other words, 50 represented the macrocosm (seasons and Earth) while 60 represented the microcosm (breathing and Sun) and the 50/60 ratio and sexagesimal system that we see as sacred in Babylonian symbolism is an expression of the experience of the equivalence of microcosm and macrocosm via breathing process. Looking a little deeper at the ‘prana’ employed to mark the flow of time, we meet with wonder in ancient scriptures like Prasnopanishad which probably suggests a correlation between ‘pranayama’ or the breathing process and the apparent motion of the Sun. We can find in Prasnopanishad, the quote from Maitrayanyupanishad which explicitly equates Prana and Sun: 2

Viśvarūpam harinam jātavedasam Parāyanam jyotirekam tapantam Sahasraraśmi satatha vartamānah Prānah prajānāmudayatyesha Sūryah Further into the text, Prāna is equated with Prajāpati and the Year and when combined with the focus of ancient Indians on the astronomical calendar, we see a possibility that the Indian Sidereal Zodiac is the astronomical abstraction of the time structure of breathing. Some of the Jyotihśāstra concepts like Sūrya-samkramam when interpreted with the related Pranayama rules, reveals the rationales like samkrama is that of “Prana-Surya” in human body and refers to switch over of breath across nadis Ida and Pingala experienced by Yogis. Samkranti in fact means expression by way of proxy and Sūrya-samkrānti is the expression of Sun in humans by proxy as Prāna, breathing behaviour. The above correlation of Indian Zodiac and Prana vis-à-vis the possibility of a ‘time structure of breathing’ can have applications in psychoneuro immunology – if Pranayama and the cosmic correlation involved can be employed effectively to enhance the quality of mind conditions and immunity of patients. This is all I can summarize in 3 pages. I have tried to invite the attention of medical men and researchers in chronobiology to the possibility of a “time structure of breathing” decipherable from precepts of Jyotihsastra and Yoga but lukewarm had been the response. If the brief appeals to your mind, I will be happy to provide more details that can be put to test and useful conclusions may be derived. With regards, 20 Feb 2007 Ahmedabad

K. Chandra Hari

From K. Chandra Hari B6-103, ONGC Colony (East) Chandkheda, PIN: 382424 Gandhinagar (Dist), Gujarat [email protected], tel: 9426032858

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