Establishing a year for Mahabharata war: 3067 BCE

Here is a note from Prof. Narahari Achar. The two key
celestial events, the slow motion of s'ani (Saturn) and the
occurrence of winter solstice (bhis.ma_s.t.ami) match with just one
date: 3067 BCE and for more arguments see the texts from Mahabharata
cited in the papers of International Colloquium held in Jan. 2003 in
Bangalore.

Here is the stellar contribution to our understanding of history.
Thanks and regards. Kalyanaraman

Establishing a unique year for the MahAbhArata war
B. N. Narahari Achar

Abstract
A methodology using the planetarium software and the most reliable
astronomical references from the epic is presented and it projects a
unique year, 3067 BCE for the events.

Introduction
A war literally as big as the MahAbhArata war has been
fought on the internet to establish the date of the epic war. Here
is my latest contribution to this effort.

Astronomical references
It is regarded that planetary positions are most reliable and
eclipses and comets are not so reliable. The most important
planetary position for purposes of this exercise is considered to be
shani at rohiNi. (Saturn at Aldeberan) This configuration has been
stressed both by KarNa in udyogaparva and by VyAsa in BhIShmaparva.
A solar eclipse at JyeShTha (Antares)is considered to be the next
important event. For, the new moon at Antares, has been mentioned by
KRShNa, and the solar eclipse has been mentioned by both KarNa and
VyAsa. The preceding full moon at kArtika (Pleiades) was a lunar
eclipse day, again mentioned by both KarNa and VyAsa. Retrograde
motion of Mars before reaching Antares and the occurrence of the
winter solstice in mAgha shukla pakSa complete the list of required
astronomical events, the references to the original in Sanskrit can
be found in the work of Sathe et al.

Methodology
A search was made using the planetarium software SkyMap
Pro6, from 3500 BCE to 1000 BCE, for the years in which Saturn was
in conjunction with Aldeberan. There are a hundred conjunctions in
this interval. Then a search was made from among these 100
conjunction years to find the years in which there was also a solar
eclipse at Antares. The planetarium software RedShift 3 was used for
this purpose. It turned out that there are 11 years in which Saturn
was at Aldeberan, and a solar eclipse at Antares
occurred. A further search was made from among these 11 years to
find those in which there was a lunar eclipse at Pleiades
immediately before the solar eclipse at Antares. This reduced the
set from 11 to six. These years are: 3244 BCE, 3067 BCE, 2890 BCE,
2360 BCE, 2183 BCE, and 1682 BCE. Then a search was made for those
years in which Mars executed a retrograde motion before reaching
Antares and became prograde again by the time the solar eclipse
occurred. Out of these six, there were two years in which Mars did
not execute retrograde motion and two years in which Mars became
retrograde much later or in some position other than near Antares.
There were only two years, 3067 BCE and 2183 BCE, in which Saturn
was at Aldeberan, there was a solar eclipse at Antares, preceded by
a lunar eclipse at Pleiades, and Mars had executed retrograde motion
before reaching Antares. These two years could be the possible years
for the MahAbhArata war. The final choice could be made by appealing
to the occurrence of the winter solstice. The winter solstice
occurred on January 7, 2182 BCE in the month of mAgha, but it was
kRSNa caturthi and the NakSatra was citrA. But, the winter solstice
in 3066 BCE occurred on shuklapancami, and the aSTami occurred at
rohiNi just as required for the date of expiry of BhISma Thus, we
get a unique year for the occurrence of all the events described in
the epic. I have already given proofs of the adhimAsa earlier. The
simulations and star maps have also shown graphically that every
event described in the epic can be simulated. Now we have the proof
of a unique year as well.

Conclusion
The year of the astronomical events in MahAbhArata is
conclusively shown to be 3067 BCE.