To,

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam

President of India

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

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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.
(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 scared 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.
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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:
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 K. Chandra Hari

Ahmedabad

From
K. Chandra Hari
B6-103, ONGC Colony (East)
Chandkheda, PIN: 382424
Gandhinagar (Dist), Gujarat
chandra_hari18@yahoo.com, tel: 9426032858