Dravidian Astronomical Origins and the Hindu Concepts

K. Chandra Hari1 I. Introduction

What follows here-in may be speculation about the Dravidian core of Indian astronomy arising from the authors feel of a Dravidian signature in terms of factors like: (a) A sidereal solar calendar in favor of the Vedic seasonal calendar (b) Preference for Naksatra position of moon as against the tithi followed in the Aryan tradition as reflected in the Northern States. (c) Origin of Siddhntic astronomy in the extreme South at the hands of Vararuci and ryabhata etc Mahadevans work, How did the great god get a blue neck? a bilingual clue to the Indus Script is a source of inspiration in coining the present note where an attempt is being made to explain the names Klan and Klaklan of the Great God. Mahadevan explains the symbols of the horned personage and the Sumerian ideogram for great in due course of time leading to the appellation Nlakanta of Mahdeva. Such bilingual clues in turn point towards the Sanskritization of original Indus Valley concepts or ancient Siddha precepts and another instance of such Sanskritization can be noted in the Sanskrit terminology related to time and astronomy.

II. Kla and Pda as Metamorphosis of Kl

The Sanskrit word for time Kla is well known in different variants like Kla, Klakla, Mahkla, Kli, Mahkli etc. Origin of the term can be traced to the ancient Dravidian concept of the Zodiac in which the ecliptic belt was divided into 27 asterisms of 4 divisions each known as Klukal or legs. Each asterism (nl) was looked upon as fourfooted and the moon stayed for a quarter-day in each of the same. 15 Ndis thus belonged to each foot or Kl and such reckoning of time in turn led to Kla as synonym
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of Neram (time). With Sanskritization, the Kl became the 4-pdas of the naksatras. The great god of time in due course became Klan and Mahklan with the entry of Dravidian Klan into Snskrit.

Water Buffalo and the Horns

The four footed Nlukal or asterisms may have inspired the depiction of God or Priests as a horned personage. Moon itself had been horned in the ancient stellar myths and thus the moon occupying an asterism found a symbolic correspondence with the Yogi wearing a horn-type head-dress.

Heliacal appearance of the crescent moon in the west after the syzygies resembled the Water Buffalo as the sun had already descended into water below the horizon. First appearance of the crescent moon heralded the new month (Msa-piravi or Pira-Nl) and thus the horned head dress may have assumed critical significance in the Indus Valley religion. Crescent moon is known as Chandra-kala and the kala in turn meant the horns as may be found used in Kala-mn. Water Buffalo in fact mimicked the calendar phenomena represented by the first appearance of the crescent moon. It is possible that the later legends on conflicts between the Goddess of time and the buffalo demon/demoness may have its origin in symbolisms shared across the generations, after the collapse of the Indus civilization. Kl in gnomonics represented the sun and the crescent moon as above may have got visualized as adorned by the sun or the Kl vis-a-vis Klan and thus the great god Klakantan may have received the name Chandra-sekhara.

III. Kla or Bull Dravidian Totem for God of Time or Klan

Kla or the bull became the vehicle or Vhana for the great god of time, Klan. Myths have made him the first of all Siddhas and the leader. Bull or Kla thus became a symbol of the graceful aspect of time god and also became Kli in the feminine aspect. Eclipses led to the description of time as a snake and led to terms like Klasarpam in later times for the nodes of moon. La and La are used without difference in the Dravidian languages like Tamil and Malayalam. God of time is described as Kalan2 in Dravidian usage and implies the Bull God. Kl also signified the auspicious beginning with the erection of a pole or by the installation of a bamboo.

IV.Kl as a quarter division and Sanskrit equivalent

Further concurrence with ancient notions can be found in the Aryan concept of Yama as the God of time as well as death. The Sanskrit equivalent of neram or vela is the word Yma which divides the night into 4 divisions. Corresponding to the Dravidain Klan, one may find the transformation of Yma as Yama equivalent to Klan, the god of time and death. It may be noted here that Kl + Kl = Ara (1/4+1/4 = 1/2) in Dravidian usage and Ara-dinam or Ara-pakal meant twice the Yma which implied 1/4th of the day or night. Nlu (four) Kl of the asterism or naksatram made one day and night known as Nl. Thus the word Nl meant a day as of moons transit and also the number four. Nle in Malayalam meant tomorrow and a corresponding application can be seen in Hindi as Kal with the dual implications of day after and day before.

V. Kl the Ancient Gnomon and use of Moon Shadow Underlying 16 Kals of Moons Nectar
Kl in Dravidian usage also stood for the stick erected for ascertaining the time. A mathematical division of the moons path into 108 quarters suggests the possibility of
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Anthimahklan Kvu is a famous Shiva temple located at Chelakkara in Trichur district. Siva in the form of 'Anthimahklan' is the main deity. An annual festival, Anthimahklan vela, is celebrated in the Malayalam month of Kumbham (February-March).
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the use of primitive moon dials in the Harappan antiquity. In full moon nights, moon dial facilitated the reckoning of time leading to the realization that on successive nights, the moon had a delay of 2 ndis and in 15 days completed its heliacal sojourn. Such an observation obviously leads to the formulation of 15+1 =16 Kalas or digits of moon which in effect represented the tithis. Further, it can be surmised that the units of elongation like Karana may have been invented based on the observations of moon. Following data is illustrative of the 16 Kalas of moon famed as Amrta-kal meaning the elixir of immortality. Also sun had the Dravidian name of Kalai-mani owing to the fact that the sun is the source of the elixir or the 16 kalas of moon. Half-Lunation at Dvraka (22N15, 69E00)
Date Julian -2600/03/14 -2600/03/15 -2600/03/16 -2600/03/17 -2600/03/18 -2600/03/19 -2600/03/20 -2600/03/21 -2600/03/22 -2600/03/23 -2600/03/24 -2600/03/25 -2600/03/26 -2600/03/27 -2600/03/28 -2600/03/29 Sun deg. 332.31 333.27 334.24 335.20 336.16 337.12 338.08 339.05 340.01 340.97 341.93 342.89 343.85 344.80 345.76 346.72 Moon Tithi Arc Moon Rise Kala deg. deg. hh:mm 152.31 180.00 16 18:43.2 166.63 193.36 15 19:42.6 180.61 206.37 14 20:40.1 194.19 218.99 13 21:35.7 207.37 231.20 12 22:29.8 220.17 232.64 244.85 256.87 268.78 280.65 292.55 304.54 316.68 329.00 341.52 243.04 254.56 265.81 276.87 287.82 298.73 309.67 320.70 331.87 343.23 354.80 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 23:22.6 -00:14.1 01:04.3 01:53.0 02:40.0 03:25.2 04:08.5 04:50.2 05:30.6 06:10.2 Sunrise hh:mm 06:31.7 06:30.9 06:29.9 06:29.0 06:28.1 06:27.1 06:26.2 06:25.2 06:24.3 06:23.3 06:22.3 06:21.3 06:20.3 06:19.2 06:18.2 06:17.2

Kals of moon received their name probably from the Kl with which the moon got observed and the lunar zodiac of 27 nlukal (naksatras) of 4 klukal each got fixed. The following observation of SR Rao (1985) on the rings unearthed from Lothal may be noted:

A thick ring-like shell object found with four slits each in two margins served as a compass to measure angles on plane surfaces or in the horizon in multiples of 40 degrees, up to 360 degrees. Such shell instruments were probably invented to measure 812 whole sections of the horizon and sky, explaining the slits on the lower and upper margins. Archaeologists consider this as evidence that the Lothal experts had achieved something 2,000 years before the Greeks: an 812 fold division of horizon and sky, as well as an instrument for measuring angles and perhaps the position of stars, and for navigation. All such measurement using instruments necessitated use of moon shadow measurements for reckoning time.

VI.Kla-Klan: Mythical Depiction of Mlam

Siddha calendar had Mlam (-Scorpii) as the fiducial star and the source of the force underlying time and thus represented the great god of time. Divisions of the ecliptic belt into 27x4 = 108 Klukal was accomplished with reference to Mlam and thus Mlam became Kl to the Klan, leading to the myth of Klaklan. Bhdrpada Astami falls on Mlam and is celebrated as Durgstami auspicious to Mahkli. She bears the name Mahisi in dual meaning as the feminine Buffalo demon and as the spouse of Mahklan. Importance of Mlam in the Siddha tradition can be recognized from such names as Tiru-Mlar adopted by the Great Siddha of Tamilakam. Other names such as Kla-kantan imply the God having the poison Kla-kta in his neck but in fact the appellation may have originated from the fiducial role of Mlam in the reckoning of time. Kla-kta meant the secret of time and kantan meant the role as the god of time.

VII.

Mythical aspects of Dravidian Six ru

Similar to the dual implications of nl as naksatram and the number four, Dravidian ru meant a river as it divided the plane into two owing to the meaning of Aru to cut. Aru also meant the numebr six as can be seen in Arumukha (Skanda) which got sanskritized as Aru-min Krttik. Aru-min for the Pleiades also caused the river Gang to figure in the legend of Skanda-Krtikeya-Gngeya.

VIII. Indus Valley Units Role of 16

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The role of 4 and 16 seen above in the context of observations of the lunar transit receive support from the fact that the Indus Valley civilization had weights of 1 unit, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 units and then 160; then multiples of 16 (320, 640, 1600, 3200, 8000, 128,000) etc. In later India too the number sixteen (16) had great significance in the sacred sciences attached to the Siddha tradition.

IX. Conclusion
The great gods of time seen in Indian tradition apparently owe their names and mythical aspects in the Dravidian antiquity of Indus Valley Civilization. It is brought out that 1. The god names such as Klan, Klan, Kli and Klaklan, Mahklan, Kalakantan etc all had their genesis in the conception of the lunar zodiac in terms of four-footed asterisms or naksatra divisions. Sanskritized equivalents like Pda and Yma are suggestive of the Indus Valley origin of the concepts of time. 2. Kl also stood for the gnomon with which sun dials and moon dials may have been in use. 3. Sixteen Kals of moon, known in the Siddha tradition can be explained using the nocturnal observations of moon with the aid of gnomons (Kl) for reckoning time. 4. Sidereal zodiac and the Chandra-naksatra based calendar reckoning prevalent in Dravidian tradition in sharp contrast to the tithi based lunar calendar of the Vedic tradition, is suggestive of some Dravidian umbilicus to unknown or little known sources like the Indus Valley civilization. 5. Closer examination of the Siddha/Yoga precepts and the hitherto unexplored YogaJyotisha relationships may bring in more evidences to establish the Dravidian character of the Indus Valley civilization. 6. 16 based and 60 based number systems, 19-40-160-560 year cycles of years in calendar systems etc can be expected to be deciphered in due course of time.