Shubhang Raina
Aryavarta consciousness which dominated the Bharatvarsha in its materialistic and spiritual sphere of life led to many great discoveries which inter-alia included origin , theory and order of weekdays.
The origin and definite sequence of weekdays is not based on any labyrinthine concoctions but has its genesis in the womb of ancient Indian science ” Jyotish shastra” (astrology) often described as the eyes of the “veda”/ “vedapurusha. Although many historians have attributed the origin of this concept of weekdays to ancient Sumerians, Babylonian, Greek and Egyptian civilizational sources which dates no older than 2100 BCE but this can be easily refuted by quoting and bringing older Bhartiya text out of terra incognito .Pertinent to mention are the texts of rig vedic age like Suryasiddhanta(taught to Maya-asura by lord Surya himself in Kriti-yuga), Pulatsaya samhita (written by maharishi Pulatsaya), Prashar samhita and Hora shastra by maharishi Prashara and Srimad Bhagwatam (written by maharishi Krishana dwipayan ved vyas in later vedic period ) . It is important to note here that Rig veda is dated nearly 3000 BCE by various scholars and historians but we Indians consider it to be tens of thousands if not hundred thousand year old. Although there also exists long list of other post Christ era texts like Aryabhatiyam by Aryabhata, Panchsidhhantika of Varahmihira , kalmadhava by Madhvacharya ,Siddhant shiromani by Bhaskarcharya to name a few.
Theory and order
Indian astronomers (siddhant jyotishi / khagol shastri) knew the Heliocentricity of the solar system before the Kepler’s Theory of Heliocentricity (1617-1621) which can be established by the facts mentioned in Aryabhatiyam (4th CE), Panchhsidhantikka(5-6TH CE ), Grahaganit (9TH CE ) .However while calculating the order of the day one needs to follow geocentric method .This is because we live on planet earth if we follow heliocentricity we will get Earth-Day instead of Sunday and Moon-day/Monday will get omitted altogether. To avoid this very error we follow geocentric model .
One may get bewildered that as per vedic astrology we have 9 planets(pind) but we have 7 days ,the reason is Rahu and Ketu are considered to be lunar nodes not planets. To determine the order of weekdays one needs to know two things the first being speed of rotation of planets and the second being Hora (a Sanskrit word derived from another Sanskrit word Ahoratra meaning a complete Day ) . One ahoratra has 60 ghatis which is equal to 24 horas which corresponds to nearly 24 hours.
To get the sequence of weekdays one must first arrange the planets from slowest to fastest (according to their speed of rotation). The order comes out to be Saturn(shani), jupiter (guru),mars(mangal) , Sun(ravi) , venus (shukr) ,
mercury(buddh ) and moon(som) .And afterwards he/she needs to make the list of hours from 1st to 24th in a row and then start assigning the each hour a graha/planet staring with Saturn ,followed by Jupiter, mars and so on as mentioned above in the order of their rotation velocity. When one reaches the bottom that is 24th hour one will get mars(mangal) as per order .Carry over to next row following this very sequence starting with 1st hour again upto 24th hour doing so upto seven times one will get 7 rows with 1st hour of each row represented by its dinpati .Therefore first row will have Saturn/shani in its 1st hour which is also its dinpati . In second row’s 1st hour one will have sun/ravi which is dinpati of 2nd row . In 3rd row’s first hour one will have moon/som which is also dinpati of 3rd row .In 4th row’s first hour person will get mars/mangal which is dinapti of the 4th . In 5th row’s first hour he/she will have mercury/buddh which is dinpati of the samerow .In 6th row’s first hour one will have Jupiter/ guru which is dinpati of the same row. And in 7th row person will get venus/shukr at its first hour which is dinapti of 7th row .Then we will arrange the planets/dinpati of all rows in a sequence and we will get our sequence of weekdays which is shanivaar, ravivaar, somvaar, mangavaar, buddhvaar, guruvaar, shukrvaar.
Hours
1 Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr
2 Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh
3 Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som
4 Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani
5 Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru
6 Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal
7 Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi
8 Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr
9 Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh
10 Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som
11 Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani
12 Shukr Shani Ravi Som mangal Buddh Guru
13 Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal
14 Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi
15 Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr
16 Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh
17 Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som
18 Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani
19 Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru
20 Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal
21 Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi
22 Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr
23 Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som Mangal Buddh
24 Mangal Buddh Guru Shukr Shani Ravi Som
Illustration source : kaal hora sarini (suryasiddhanta)
As knowledge migrated out of bharat-varsha so do names got changed according to local languages as was the case of ravi-vaar which became sunday as anglo-saxons called surya as sun.
Another question might arise when the new day begins ? As far as beginning of the day is concerned it is upto the discretion of jyotishi or ganitagya or mathematician to choose . As Suryasiddhanta mentions new day starts after midnight the sytem which west follows or it can be from one sunrise to another as mentioned in Pulatsya samhita, Aryabhatiyam, Panchsiddhantika inter-alia.
We as bhartiyas must be proud of our heritage as our ancient erudite maharishis gave the world the most pertinent part of chronology without which human’s scientific endeavour and management of vital activities wouldn’t have been possible.
Lets us claim what is ours and decolonialise ourselves from the silhouette of west and reinvigorate in ourselves the “aryavarta consciousness”6 and be the torch bearer to the world by being Vishwa-Guru as we had been for past 3/4th history of mankind.
( The author is pursuing M.A Astrology )
Follow our WhatsApp channel
