Please click on the link below: https://paryal123.wordpress.co... When did the events in Ramayan happen? These days, the internet is flooded with two different dates for the birth of Ram obtained on the basis of astronomical dating, i.e, by matching the positions of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets relative to zodiac constellations as described in Ramayan, which are shown below:1. Sun in Aries2. Venus in Pisces3. Mars in Capricorn4. Saturn in Libra5. Jupiter in Cancer6. Moon near Punarvasu nakshatra(Pollux star) in Gemini ConstellationThe dates are based on the work of Dr. PV Vartak (4th Dec 7323 BC) and the work of Ashok Bhatnagar (10th Jan 5114 BC). Dr. Vartak used traditional approach to obtain his result, whereas Ashok Bhatnagar used Planetarium Gold software. With an aim to test the validity of these two dates for the birth of Ram, I employed two different software packages, Stellarium, and CyberSky. Both of these gave me the time of around Feb 19 5115 BC (i.e, -5114 AD Feb 19) Julian date, which is Jan 10 5115 BC in Gregorian calendar. The date is exactly 1 year off from what has been reported by Ashok Bhatnagar. It looks like that he forgot to correct for 0 AD, which is 1 BC. The birth date I found also appears to be on or around navami based on the portion of the moon illuminated on that day. With Stellarium, I could reproduce solar eclipses that took place in 2000 BC, as mentioned on NASA’s website, with a difference of only a few hours. So, I hope Stellarium is accurate enough to reproduce results within an error of a few days at the maximum, for an astronomical event that occurred about 7000 years ago. It should be noted that the date provided by astronomical dating is, however, only the latest possible date. Astronomical events reoccur roughly every 26000 years. The view of the sky changes continuously due to the rotation of the earth about its axis, the revolution of the earth and other planets around the sun, the revolution of the moon around the earth, and the precession of the rotational axis of the earth.  The precession of the axis completes one cycle in about 26000 years. The same position of the constellations, sun, moon and planets have occurred uncountably large number of times in the past, roughly every 26000 years. Thus, astronomical dating of ramayan is not conclusive. Based on fossil records, it is believed that homo sapiens have been on the earth for at least 200,000 years. It has been a long time since they were as intelligent as we are now.  Even before the appearance of homo sepians, homo erectus knew how to make fire, probably 1,000,000 years ago. The discovery of fire led to the gradual evolution of homo sepians, which have larger brains. Homo erectus could make stone blades and spears. Genetic and archaeological studies suggest that homo sepians migrated from Africa to indian subcontinent 50,000 to 60,000 years ago (and to Europe about 40,000 years ago). Thus, the approximate possible dates for Ramayan could be 7000 years, 33000 years, or 59,000 years before present. The story of Ramayan talks about Rakshyas (demons). It is possible that there were other human species such as Neanderthals or Denisovans coexisting at that time that our species addressed as Rakshyas. Both Neanderthals and Denisovans lived in the indian sub-continent when modern humans arrived. Neanderthals could speak just like modern humans and survived until about 30,000 years before present. Genetic studies show that most of the human population (outside Africa) have about 1 to 4% Neanderthal genes. The species addressed as Rakshyas must have been strongly built but ugly human species that hunted homo sepians for prey. Denisovans had huge teeth, which is a characteristic of Rakshyas according to stories we hear. The monkeys mentioned similarly could be a different human species that are extinct now, but could communicate with humans. Neanderthals could be monkeys as they were shorter in height than modern humans. Several different species of humans have coexisted in the past. As a physicist, I don’t think that Ramayan is a 100% history though. I consider it as a mixture of truth and myth. Ram could have been a morally good person of his time and thus people considered him as god. The story must have evolved with the addition of myths as it was passed on to new generations orally, until it was finally written down. Due to the occurrence of ice age, mini ice age, great floods at the end of ice age, asteroid impacts, famine, epidemic diseases, etc., old civilizations and their traces have been wiped out from time to time. There is the story of great flood in the skripture of every religion. It is quite possible that many advanced civilizations have been wiped in the past due to massive natural disasters. I am saying advanced in the sense that they lived in communities, helped each other, and had a head of the community ‘King’ despite being hunter-gatherers. Ramayan must have happened ages ago, unless it never happened. It is impossible that 7000 years ago, ‘real’ modern time monkeys, which also existed then, used to communicate with humans, used weapons, etc. If they did, when and why did they stop doing that? And who were Rakshyasas who lived until 7000 years ago, but are now extinct without any fossil record, while even the fossils of some earliest known life forms in the precambrian era (460 billion years to 541 million years) are still preserved? Puruswottam Aryal, Ph.D. Last edited: 27-Aug-17 01:22 PM Last edited: 27-Aug-17 01:23 PM Last edited: 27-Aug-17 01:43 PM Last edited: 28-Aug-17 04:50 PM Last edited: 28-Aug-17 04:51 PM