Popularity Of Almanacs In India

India has very rich tradition of creating almanacs. In older days they were written on either Bhuurja(birch) bark or Taalapattra(Palm leaf). Today they are printed .

Almanacs list all the important religious events to be performed in the duration of 365 (or 366) days. They give all the dates in the tabular form with the necessary details of the specific time of sunrise and sunset, starting date and ending date of all six seasons (not four seasons, India has six seasons ) rise and set of all the visible celestial bodies like the moon, the stars etc. Even constellations they list.

Major feature of the almanacs is their exact prediction of periodical occurrence of eclipses- both lunar and solar. In this particular aspect they make us wonderstruck because of their accuracy.

One shall not forget that all of the ancient lore is mixed with mythological beliefs. According to the Indian mythology, Sun is devoured fully or partially by a demon by ‘Raahu’ during solar eclipse and after sometime, is spit out. Moon (‘He’ according to Indian mythology and not ‘She’ as in European culture) is fully devoured by another demon namely ‘Ketu’ during the time of Lunar eclipse. It is because of these two demons, these poor Sun and Moon are in critical condition during the time of eclipse !

The ancient scientists who were good in astronomy did not node after listening this fable. They strongly argued that ‘Raahu’ means the shadow of moon that falls on the earth and ‘Ketu’ means shadow of the earth that falls on the moon.

In India you can see a bookshop without having books of Chemistry, Physics, fictions, grammar or Philosophy. But hardly you will come across a major bookshop that does not have works on astrological prediction.

Personally, I do not believe in astrological prediction . But I do enjoy a story of an astrologer who correctly predicted:

‘‘Once upon a time, there was a landlord. One day, a small lizard fell on his forefinger. Since he was strong believer in astrology, he smelt a negative consequence hinted by this incident. Immediately, he called for an astrologer. Being asked on the damaging incident hinted by falling of lizard on forefinger of landlord, the astrologer uttered two words: ‘Death tomorrow’.

‘‘Getting scared, the landlord called all of his relatives and told : ‘Tomorrow I am going to die. Please arrange for my proper death ceremony. ‘ The relatives lamented and started to weep. But even after two days he did not die. When he accidentally open the door of kitchen, he noticed that the lizard, being stuck in between outer part of the doorframe and the door, was dead.

‘‘That astrologer had not said that the landlord will die. He had uttered only two words: Death tomorrow. That’s all! Obviously, he meant death of lizard and not landowner.

‘‘That means, the astrology is not pseudo-science. It is ‘Scientific’ science!”