PDA

View Full Version : Midnight as the beginning of a new day?



yajvan
28 March 2008, 11:35 AM
Hari Om
~~~~~

Namaste,

In jyotish a full day is measured from one surise to the next. Some people debate what is sunrise? First light? or the very tip of the sun showing on the horizon or even it being half-way, to its center. The difference here is in minutes or fractons thereof.

Just a note: for someone born say Wednesday at 3 AM in the morning, a jyotisha would see this day as a Tuesday birth, as Wednesday does not occur until there is sunrise to begin the new day.

I often wondered who came up with the notion that mid-night should be the start of a new day? K.N.S Patnaick offers the follow assessment:

"Uptil the Mahabharat War the world had a single, unitary administration under Vedic sovereigns, which reckoned the day from sunrise to sunrise centering on India.
Consequently, other regions of the world stuck to the Indian time schedule. Thus for instance, when the sun rose in India at around 5.30 am it used to be midnight hour in Britain. Therefore the Vedic administration in Britain calculated its date from midnight to midnight.
The midnight to midnight reckoning under British rule, emanated originally from the Indian sunrise time."If others heard of another view, it would be interesting to hear another POV.

pranams