Re: a discussion on OIT

From: Rick McCallister
Message: 58847
Date: 2008-05-25

--- koenraad_elst <koenraad.elst@...> wrote:

. . .
> How shall I put it? Your confusing "astronomy" and
> "astrology" is a
> pretty explicit indication of the astronomical
> iliteracy among
> philogists. Nothing wrong with that, most
> astronomers are
> philologically illiterate too. The point is only
> that the heavens
> don't stand still, indeed. There is the phenomenon
> of the precession
> of the equinoxes, which means that the position of
> visible stars
> changes vis-à-vis the geometry of the seasons
> (solstice & equinox
> axis) at the rate of 1° in ca. 71 years. When
> Sanskrit writers care
>
=== message truncated ===
We got cut off here but I get your drift.
If you're going to rely on astronomy --and now is the
first sign I've of astronomy in your ideas-- you will
need to calibrate the findings to take into account
the relative changes that have occured over thousands
of years. Have reputable astronomers done this? What
do Anthony Aveni et al. say about this?
Your other problem is that Indo-Aryans did not have
writing until 3-500 BCE. And if these phenomenon were
not committed to writing until centuries after they
purportedly happened, that doesn't bode well for
fidelity of data.