As we were standing around, there were a lot of questions and how did I get into this? And it is a frequently asked question. So, what I thought and this happens everywhere. So, this is not exception.

So, I will start with a short list of the frequently asked questions. And I also want to set the right tone, which is I want to give, create a framework for you to ask questions. And that is the best time, you know, the samvad.

That is how we learn more. Bhagavad Gita also talks about pariprasnena sevaya, upadekshan dite jnanam jnanino sattva-darshina. So, there is that method is considered effective method.

So, first question, how did you get into this subject of dating of ancient narratives, Mahabharata, Ramayana? And people ask that because again, many times your background, everyone has a background, we get into a regular job, we get busy into it. And how did this happen? I will tell you how it happened. But that is not a very exciting story.

A student of Professor John Wheeler. Now, I do not know how many of you have heard this name. He was a well-known, great professor of theoretical physics at Princeton University.

Some of you might have heard Richard Feynman, if not John Wheeler. He was a, John Wheeler was a professor to Richard Feynman for his PhD thesis. Someone asked him, what is the secret to have an exciting, fulfilling life when you are on your deathbed and you want to say, you know what, I had a good run.

I had an exciting run, the rapture of living. And Professor John Wheeler responded, he said, find the strangest thing in any discipline. Find the toughest problem in any field of your choice and go solve it.

Now, you may be successful in solving it, you may not be successful. Either way, you will have a fulfilling life. You will end up answering many other questions that you have not even thought of.

Naturally, then the people ask, how did you select a field of our choice? Well, Bhagavad Gita talks of Suryansa, Dharma, Abhiguna, I mean, you can read that too. But answer is very simple, something that excites you and something where you feel that your abilities are up to par with that subject, with that area. So, yes, you found a field now, you found the strangest thing, you found the toughest problem.

What do you do next? Anyone? Go solve it. How do you solve the problem? I am going to give you a couple of answers. One is a circular answer, but I tell you, it is a true answer.

If you want to solve a problem, first, you want to understand what truly the problem is. And sometimes that is a big problem. Now, if you want to truly understand a problem, now listen to my answer because it is circular.

The best way to understand what truly the problem is, is to try solving it. Think of Thomas Edison, you know, trying multiple things, you try one way and it does not work. At least now you know it does not work.

So, maybe that is not the intended solution. And do we truly understand the problem? Which means, do we truly understand the right questions? And so, as we, as I set the stage for that question answer session, I would encourage all of you to ask questions. Please keep in mind to make the best use of our time.

It will be great if you formulate your question, even write it down if you prefer. But, you know, the question starts with when, why, where, how, etc. Typically, one sentence, maybe a couple of sentences.

If this is the case, what do you think or what would be the situation? Now, of course, people ask why bother dating Mahabharata and Ramayana? I am going to give you three key points there. The subject of history, not just from a Mahabharata or Ramayana, but just as a reader of the subject, I have read for 20 plus years. And this is the judgment I formulated in the last 10 years or so, which is enormous evidence exists when it comes to Indian history.

Now, I am sure a number of you would have heard this. A number of you might think that this is true, that when it comes to Indian history, we don't have enough evidence. Let me tell you, there is tons of evidence, a lot of evidence that people even don't know it exists.

I don't know it exists. And we don't know what to do with it, how to interpret and so on. On the other hand, if you look at Western civilizations, and I'll start with Rome, Greece and so on, because Western Europe looked at Western civilization as maybe the seeds into the Greek civilization, Roman civilization.

Close to zero evidence, close to zero evidence and fantastic history writing. I also, I'm also convinced that British did a very successful thing in deracinating generations of Indians, at least three generations of Indians. And I, fortunately, I had a chance to go around the world many times, many different places, I make very local connections with them.

And I haven't seen a place now, of course, my biases towards India, me being an Indian, but I haven't even seen a place where people have so much inferiority complex. And I'm convinced that it has to do with that deracination. Other people will talk about their ethics, talk about their history with great pride, they will know the details.

But here, almost it's a fashion not to talk about it. Otherwise, you might be considered backward or something like this. Quickly, after the talk, you might ask these questions.

So I'll quickly give a high level answer. How does our scientific knowledge grows? I mean, that we will talk as a part of the talk here. And so corroboration is or the validation is how we solve these problems.

And the falsification removes the status quo. Now that's complicated. I'll tell you in a simple way how science progresses.

Science doesn't progress as much by insisting or by proving that this is how it is. This is the answer. That's not how it progresses.

But it definitely progresses by proving or disproving existing understanding or existing explanation. So it makes progress by saying definitely this is not true. So that's the falsification word definitely by falsifying something else.

And what is my program for this India visit? Well, I was invited for two conferences. And that's how this whole thing started. And that's how we all are here.

So thank you for coming. What other things are you working on? And the simple answer I'll give you too many to list. All right.

I want to share with you an example of something very simple from everyday life. What constitutes a falsifying evidence? What constitutes a revolutionary scientific evidence? This is not scientific, but I want to make you familiar with it. So three personalities, do you recognize them? Yeah, the first one Lokmanya Chura, the middle one is Swatantravir Savarkar, the last one is Mahatma Gandhi.

I'm going to quiz you now. True or false? The question is, if someone tells you Lokmanya Chura, Swatantravir Savarkar and Mahatma Gandhi met in Pune in 1923 to discuss the state of British rule in India. True or false? Okay, just raise your hand.

How many of you think this is true? Raise your hands. Nice and clear there, please. I can count them.

Okay. Very good. That's 6.35%. How about the others? We are not aware of it.

Okay. And just now I talked about the deracination. Okay.

Okay. It's a minor thing, right? But it's one of our big leader. How many of you, anyone knows the answer? I mean, I'll give the answer.

Anyone knows the explanation? We think that Lokmanya Chura passed away before 1923. But I'm not 100% sure. Okay.

We know, again, to his point, we should not supposed to know every nitty-gritty detail. I understand that. But that was precisely the point.

Okay. Lokmanya Chura passed away in 1920. So now that I provided you the evidence, what do you think? True or false? False.

Is everyone sure? Yes. Okay. And why is that? Okay.

It doesn't matter whether it says 1923, 1924, 25, 26, 31, 35, doesn't matter. The answer is false. That's the kind of decisive evidence we talk about.

And we are going to talk today two specific examples of such kind of decisive evidence, one from Mahabharata, one from Ramayana. Okay. So it will not tell you exactly when they might have come together and discussed.

Well, they may not have come together and discussed. But what it will tell you or what I want to convince you, based on those two evidences, that Mahabharata war did not happen anytime, even a day late than 4500 BC in last 6500 years ago. So I'm just giving you the whole climatic thing there.

Okay. I also want to convince you that when it comes to Ramayana, I want to show you the evidence that Ramayana did not happen even a day late than 10,000 BC, essentially did not happen in last 12,000 years. Okay.

This is the logic of scientific discovery. Okay. There are three corners to it.

So just the example that we went through, Lokmanya Chirayak and Swatantri Virat Savarkar and Mahatma Gandhi. Prediction. So that was the, that was the statement, right? That was the claim that we made in 1923.

That was the prediction. Okay. True or false.

And the explanation that of course, we know true or false, but how did we get to it is through testing. And we use the single directional arrow of time. We said 1923 came after 1920.

It sounds very funny, right? But pay attention to this because that's the logic. This is the logic of scientific discovery. That's the logic we are going to use when we get to Mahabharata and Ramayana evidence.

Everyone clear on this triangle? We will be revisiting this triangle. The triangle that I just described, Professor C.K. Raju, number of you who might have heard, if not, I will encourage you to read, to go to YouTube and listen to his videos. He has a book which says scientific, scientific knowledge or basis of science is that Western in origin.

It's a book worth reading. What I want to start with is the triangle that I just described. All the great people are talking the same thing.

Bhagwan Patanjali Yoga Sutra, you might have heard Patanjali Yoga Sutra, first chapter Samadhi Path and verse 7. Pratyaksha, Anumana, Agama, Pramanani. Pratyaksha, that is empirical proof, testing. Anumana, that is a prediction or inference.

Agama is the background knowledge and Pramanani is the explanation or description. We just went through the triangle. And if you thought, I just took that example of Turok and somehow made it up.

Let's go through Sir Karl Popper, who is very famous, known for the philosophy of science. I will again encourage you to read the books, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Conjectures and Repetitions and so on. He says, you start with the problem.

I'll give you a couple of examples of it. How many of you have this experience that you lifted a bucket of water and when you lift it, you're surprised because you thought it was filled with it, but it wasn't. How many of you have this experience? If you have, raise your hand.

Okay, those of you who don't have this experience, I'll give you a second example. Let's say you walk, you're walking down the stairs and suddenly you stumble and maybe sprain your leg and you're surprised and you look back and say, what happened here? And what was happening again? You were expecting a step there and it wasn't there. In both cases, what I'm saying is, consciously or not, we always have these theories, expectations in the back of our mind.

And when those expectations are startled, we get the problem. We say, what happened here? Who removed the step? Or, oh, I thought the bucket was busy, heavy. So, we start with the problem.

That's what Karl Copper says. And then we propose a theory that is an explanation to solve that problem. And then we work at error elimination.

How do we do that? We look at the computations of the theory and then we look at the evidence and see if it matches. And then we end up with bigger problems. When I'm done, you will start asking questions such as, well, but if this is true, 4500 BC and so on, what about this? It leads to bigger problems of higher complexity.

And in fact, a test of a revolutionary theory is that it doesn't solve all the problems. It creates more of higher complexity. That's what happened in science everywhere.

Richard Feynman, I just mentioned his name. He says, all science problems, you start with a guess. You have a problem, you try to come up with an explanation.

You compute the consequences, the predictions against the worst explanation prediction. And then next, and you compare the consequences with the actual observations, experiments, nature, simulations, and you reach the conclusion. This is one type of issue, one problem.

Now, what do you do if there are many researchers claiming to have an answer to the same problem? Okay. You need to ask three questions. And this is not about Mahabharata, Ramayana.

It appears everywhere. You need to ask three questions. Anytime you see a claim, somebody is saying something.

The first question is, you can ask that person, what is your siddhanta? What is your theory? I will tell you my theory. There are more than 800 astronomy references together between Ramayana and Mahabharata. And my theory simply says, all these astronomy references from these two epics are actual, factual, visual observations of the sky of that time.

Clear, what I am saying? Okay, simple one sentence. Then you need to ask two questions. Again, for some of you very straightforward.

You must ask, is this researcher taking into account all the evidence or just randomly or selectively looking at few which happens to fit his or her theory or date? Okay. And this last question you need to ask is, is this evidence testable, objectively testable? If I gave you the recipe, you know, for a certain food dish, you know, you should able to follow that and able to get more or less the same outcome. Can we do the same thing? If I claim something, can you, every one of you, with little understanding of astronomy, able to repeat what I did and reach the same conclusion, then it's objectively testable.

Okay, next. Next. So, what I'm going to do now is take those two axes, evidence and testability.

Yeah, you can go until that thing is full with all four quadrants filled. Stop. So, what I did, I looked at evidence with the two extremes as either arbitrary or selective evidence.

And at the top is all relevant evidence. And the horizontal axis, I took it as objectively testable. On one side, if the answer is yes, it means it's scientific.

And we were talking outside what is scientific and what is not. If it's objectively testable, to that extent, it is scientific. Now, the other side is metaphysical.

And that's when lot of confusion happens. Metaphysical does not mean it is false. It is not true.

It does not mean that. It simply means we don't have enough evidence. We cannot talk about it one way or the other.

That's all it says. Now, I can go on on just this slide for four days. So, I'll just do two minutes, which is think of the horizontal line below that is bad, above that is good.

If you look at the horizontal vertical axis to the east of it, I mean to the right of it, it means it's objectively testable. The other side, it is not objectively testable. Look at the bottom corner.

Skepticism. Skepticism is good. It's essential ingredient for science.

But what is not good is you just ask question to someone else. You should feel passionate about the question yourself that you start searching. And that was my journey with the two observations that I'm going to share with you.

We look at Mahabharata claims. Do you know how many claims are there about Mahabharata, time of Mahabharata? When did the Mahabharata war happen? Anyone, any guess? 75. 75.

Okay. There are more than 130 different claims by those many different researchers for the timing of Mahabharata war. And if I were to split them into this framework, next, next, next, they fall like this.

For Ramayana, they fall like this. Again, just a quick one note on the bottom right hand quadrant, superficial and manipulative. The manipulative because it appears scientific, because whatever little evidence they're testing, they're testing it and that is true.

Suppose Mahabharata says, now please listen to me, I'm not saying Mahabharata says that. Suppose Mahabharata says, if the war started on Monday and some researcher claimed a certain date and his first day also happens to be Monday. What does that tell you? Does that mean his date is correct? No.

Monday is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition. Okay. So that's the nature of that bottom quadrant.

Next. Again, I'm going to talk of astronomy evidence. I want to quickly mention that if you want to find out the timing of Mahabharata or Ramayana, it's not important that you just only stick to astronomy.

You can take a geology route, you can take archaeology route, any of these and many more. These are just examples. Next.

All right, we're going to get into our first example, first observation from Mahabharata. Just give you a background. All of Mahabharata has close to 200 astronomy observations.

And I have in my book, I have listed each one of them. So there are 215 and I put down plus, because I bet there are many more that I might have missed. So that's your opportunity, you know.

They can be split into these two categories. On the right, I call them near earth phenomenon. What does that mean? Just like we said Monday, you know, if it's a Monday, something happened on Monday.

Again, the Monday will repeat after seven days. If you look at the certain phase of the moon, it will repeat after a month. Certain position of the sun, like 21st of December now, in 10 days, it will repeat after a year, right? So those are repetitive phenomenon.

In fact, astronomy, everything is repetitive. Well, not quite, and we'll see that. The other side, that's also somewhat repetitive phenomenon, but it has a longer time span.

We're talking thousands of years. The phenomenon is known as the precession of equinoxes, and I'll briefly describe it. And the whole cycle of the precession of equinoxes takes 26,000 years.

26,000 years. And by luck, it helps us in determining the timing of our ancient events. So from that other side, that long cycle of 26,000 years, I'm going to take one observation.

That is one out of 215 total observations. What is it? Number of you may know that Krishna tried to create the peace, see if he can avoid the war. Yeah.

Did he succeed? No. So finally, the war is due. It's a day before the war.

And Vasudev, he says, let me make a final attempt and see if I can succeed. So he approaches Dhritarashtra and tries to tell him all the negatives about the war and so on. And while he is having communication, he makes a list of many other things, you know, scary things.

And part of that list, he mentions many astronomy observations, he mentions many others. And one of the astronomy observation we are going to discuss today is this. It comes in Vishwaparva Adhyay 2, verse 31.

You can read it and you can tell me the meaning of it. Someone asked me about my Sanskrit knowledge and so on. So everyone can read it.

I'm sure. Next, I'll give you a quick translation. So no worries there.

That respected Arundhati has gone ahead of Vasishta. He's walking ahead of Vasishta. And we are talking astronomy, stars and so on.

How many of you are familiar with Saptarshi in the sky? How many of you can point them out if you go at night and assuming they are in the sky? Okay, very good number of you. So it's a panhandle or it's a kite and a tail, right? So think of the square there, okay? Not square, the rectangle. That's the pan and then there's a handle or a tail.

There are three stars into that tail and the middle star is Vasishta in Indian astronomy, Mizar in Western astronomy. Next to that Vasishta is a small star, it's called Arundhati in Indian astronomy. In Western astronomy, it's Alcor.

And if you go tonight, you will have to wake up very early and sky has to be, of course, clear. So if not, in Delhi, I guess. Around four o'clock, you'll see them this time of the year.

It's right up there. And if you have even an ordinary binocular, you could able to see it very nicely that you can see with the naked eyes. If you have a good eyesight, Vasishta will appear walking ahead of Arundhati.

That's the scenario today. That's the scenario that was the scenario thousand years ago, 2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago, 6,000 years ago. Vasishta was walking ahead of Arundhati.

Vas is saying Arundhati is walking ahead of Vasishta. Now, what's the big deal of this observation? Well, I just told you. Even if you go back 6,000 years, still Vasishta is walking ahead of Arundhati.

So what does that tell you? If this statement of Vas is true, Mahabharata did not happen for last 6,000 years. Now, you would imagine all these 130 plus researchers would do something about it, right? It exists. Only four people mention it out of 130.

Who are those four? Bharatacharya CV Vaidya. Lokmanya Trivedi gave him the title for his great work on Mahabharata, great study. He said this is something impossible in astronomy.

Someone might have introduced it afterwards. And that happens in our literature. Second person Bharat Ratna and Mahamahupadhyay Panduranga Vamankani.

And he said, this is something that is impossible in the very order of nature, astronomically speaking. So he also said someone might have inserted. In our times, Professor Aryanayangar, those of you who may know the name, he recently retired from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

He has done a lot of good work in this area. But I'll tell you and you relate to that word anyways, is that he tried to do some jugaad, trying to explain this observation. You know what he did? He took this last line, Arundhati Taya Pesha Vasishta Prashnata Kruta, and tried to combine with another line from another Adhyaya of Mahabharata, Dhruvam Prajrutam Govaram Aka Sanyat Pravartate.

It is actually referring to planet Mars, nothing to do with these stars. He tried to see some jugaad can happen and didn't go anywhere. The fourth one is Dr. P V Varkar.

He's a medical doctor, now 83 year old, based in Pune. And he always was convinced that this is a factual observation and tried to test it in three different ways over many years and failed. Now someone might say, come on, Mahabharata is so big, that someone may just miss that observation.

But that story doesn't sell. The reason is, there are four specific observations in this chapter, everyone mentions the remaining three, but not this one. And now you know why, because if you go back unless 6000, at least for last 6000 years, you cannot explain it.

So I'm going to quickly explain the precision of equinoxes what that phenomenon is, and then we get back to this observation. Okay, next. All right, it's year 2016.

Now, if you at night looking at the north direction, go next and next, you will identify the pole star. How many of you can identify a pole star in principle? Okay, a lot of you very good. So you'll notice that pole star and what you'll notice that if you sit there in a nice comfortable chair for a long time, you will find all the stars rotate around that pole star, right? And how do they rotate in anticlockwise direction? Okay, next.

Now this one, go back one more, this star, I mean, it's a track of one star. And I will say this star is walking ahead of the next please, that star, do you agree? Because the stars are going in anticlockwise direction, yes or no? Yeah, okay, good. Next.

Now, what happens is this, we call it a pole star. And we think it's steady Dhruva Tara, you know, he said Dhruva means fixed. Well, it is fixed, but it is fixed for say maybe 1000 years or 2000 years, it is not fixed forever.

There's another astronomy phenomenon, where Earth's axis where it points to in the sky, if there is a star, we call it a Dhruva Tara, Polaris in this case, but it has its own motion, it's a very slow motion, like a top, you know, that you play with. Okay, and that's what we call the precision, precision, precision of the axis. It's very slow, and it completes one circle in 26,000 years.

Next, next, so we'll start here Earth's axis at an angle pointing towards the sky, next, NCP, a star next to it, in our science is Polaris, next. But I said it goes and makes a circle, it persists around, and it takes 26,000 years, next, next, next. Okay, so let me ask you a question.

When would our Earth's axis will point to that other star, Brahma Rashi or Abhijit? 13,000 years, either we go backwards 13,000 years or go forward 13,000 years. Yeah, okay, so let's do that. Next, so we'll go back to 11,000 BC, everyone understands, plus 2,000, that's 13,000 approximately.

Do this, everything will be same, except now, next, next, next, Earth's axis will be pointing towards Brahma Rashi or Abhijit. What does that mean? 13,000 years ago, Brahma Rashi or Abhijit was our pole star, not Polaris, okay, next. This is the circle, that's how you will see, if you go backwards, you will see different years and different stars, bright stars, they will be considered pole stars, okay, next, next.

Now what I am doing is, I am taking the same circle, placing the positions of those same stars, and now I want to place their relative positions of Arundhati and Vasishtha, next, next. Okay, do you see, that's how they are, just for demonstration, they are exaggerated and shown as wider, okay. Now everyone understands, if Polaris is my pole star, they are going to go around Polaris in an anticlockwise direction, okay.

I am going to draw a line that goes through Vasishtha and Arundhati and crosses that circle of position twice. Pay attention, that's, that line has split that circle into three categories, okay, next, next. Point A, point B, next, and our current point C, and I am also going to mark down the point X, next, next.

So 5561 BCE and that is my proposed date for the time of the year of Mahabharata war. Now, I have not proposed it myself, Dr. P. V. Vartag, one of the four names I mentioned, he proposed it in 1980 sometime, and so when I started working with it, my goal was to see if it is true, and my goal was to actually disprove that date. So I went through every single observation, okay.

So let's see what happens, what that line did, next. Bear with me, it appears complicated, I tell you, it's simple. Okay, that line has split this circle into three different phenomenons.

The first one is, we can say, go next, that particular curve, we can say the Vasistha would appear walking ahead of Arunabhati, and I will show you in a minute, few minutes why, okay. Next, when that line cuts that circle at two points A and B, 4508 BCE, those two points, let me ask you a question, where do you see the point of pole along that curve and the line? Who would appear ahead and who would appear behind? Think of it as a clock, and that line is the arm of the clock, and Arunabhati and Vasistha are on that arm. Anyone ahead, anyone behind? No.

On that line, when it's on the line, Vasistha, as if they are eclipsed, they will be coinciding, and I am going to show you. So Vasistha and Arunabhati will be together, no one ahead, no one behind, in those two years. And the last one, next.

Anytime the point of north celestial pole is along that green area, okay, you will see that Arunabhati would appear walking ahead of Vasistha, okay. So we are going to do that, next. Next, click, click, click.

So we are going to do the today's scenario. So just for the reference as a help, I am just drawing those trajectories for each of the star. Just that looking at this picture, will everyone agree that here we will see Vasistha walking ahead of Arunabhati? Yes? And let's look at the simulation, next.

If you look at the astronomy simulation, that vertical green line, think of that as a 12 o'clock in your clock, it's the meridian in astronomy. Vasistha has already gone ahead, crossed the meridian, Arunabhati is behind. Everyone with me? Just the year if you check, that's 2016, our times.

Next. So now I'm going to look at those two points, A and B, when the north pole, the point of north pole was at A and B, and when was that? 4508 BCE and also 11091 BCE. Okay, let's do it.

Next, next, next, next. So from B now, I am drawing those arms again. Okay, go next.

Another one. Okay. They are aligned with each other.

Next. And what do we see? We will see Arunabhati and Vasistha walk together. Let's do the simulation.

That's exactly what you see. So at meridian, they're both crossing together. No one ahead, no one behind.

No, they're not in the place of Dhrotara. The place of Dhrotara is point A or B. And Vasistha and Arunabhati are walking around A or B and all other stars of that area too. Next.

Let's do that for 4508 BCE. Again, I'm doing that from point A. Let's look at the simulation for that year. Again, the same thing.

No one ahead, no one behind. Yes. Okay.

Now let's look at the last scenario. Next. So now I'm deliberately keeping that straight line as your reference line because you know that's when no one is ahead, no one is behind.

Next, go next. And now I'm going to draw lines from this point of North Pole in 5561 BCE to Arunabhati and Vasistha. Next.

And what can you say? Not much difference. But what do you see? If they're going anticlockwise, you will see Arunabhati walk ahead of Vasistha. Next, next.

And let's look at the simulation. Next. Pay attention.

Not much difference. And they're going anticlockwise. But Arunabhati has already crossed the meridian.

Vasistha yet has to cross the meridian. And that was the scenario that was happening from 11,091 BCE until 4,508 BCE. So until 6,500 years ago.

Okay. Next. So now back to the triangle, the triangle of science.

If you want to bring all this together, what did we do? We did the testing. Empirical proof. Okay.

That any one of you should be able to go back and test it. Don't have to trust me on this one. So go slow.

Okay. So we start with the explanation. What is the explanation? Simple.

Arunabhati ahead of Vasistha. The testing, the question is, is it even possible? Those people who thought it's not possible, they said somebody must have inserted it. But when finally someone could actually show that it is possible, the question is, when was that possible? When was the case? And the answer is sometime from 11,091 BCE until 4,500 BCE.

Around 6,500 years. Anytime, anyone on the earth, northern hemisphere, looking at Arunabhati-Vasistha during this time would have seen Arunabhati walk ahead of Vasistha. Next.

So now bring this together. Put your scientific hat. We got the empirical proof.

We got the Shabda Pramana. Somebody is saying, claiming something. Arunabhati walking ahead of Vasistha.

We got the empirical proof that yes, it indeed went ahead of Vasistha. If you combine, we should be able to assert that Mahabharata war did not happen anytime, anytime after 4,500 BCE, depending on how you say it. Okay.

Did not happen, I said. Okay. This one single observation, bring back the example I gave you of Lokmanya Chirag in 1920.

It doesn't matter whether it's 23 or 31 or 37. It doesn't matter. Any year of Mahabharata war that falls after 4,500 BCE, this one observation says wrong.

Now I want you to bring the skeptic in you. What will you say? Come on, go next one. He says, okay, that's fine.

Shabda Pramana matches with the Pratyaksha Pramana, empirical proof. That's all nice, but come on, that's just one observation. Yeah, go next.

Next. So I said skeptic blurs out. They actually do.

This is, but this is only one observation. Could this be a random coincidence? Oh, it's possible. You know, they're only, when you talk of science, you're talking about more likely and less likely.

There is no certainties in science. Okay. It's very humble, but it's also very fearless.

It feels comfortable making claims and it encourages others to come and say, please prove me wrong. That's science. Okay.

So somebody says, that's a coincidence. Maybe just one reference. Not at all.

Remember there are 215 and you can just go one after another. I'm going to give you a quick summary of another one. Did appear reasoning based on Bhishma Nirvana.

Again, I'm not going to go through it. In fact, I'm writing a book on it titled Bhishma Nirvana. Okay.

And one great mentor of mine said, I used to, I started explaining to him. Now he understood, but he said, if you cannot explain something in 20 minutes, write a book. Okay.

So I'm going to write a book on it, but quick summary of it is just like I did on a, what I showed you with the AV observation. It's totally different ballgame. Nothing to confuse with AV observation.

We can also prove with the same force that Mahabharata war just based on 23 references of Bhishma Nirvana did not happen even a day later than 4,700 BCE or before 7,000 BCE. Okay. Next.

So again, this set of observation also instantly falsifies any date that falls after 4,500. They're more or less same. They happen to be the same.

Next. Again, the skeptic, our skeptic doesn't give up. He says, all right, but there are only two sets of observations that do this.

Would this be a random coincidence? Now I'm not going to keep you here all night going through that, but no, we have many of this. We can just go through the seasons and go on and on. I'll encourage you to read my book or even a block.

There are 400 blocks that I have written, essentially responding to questions like this. Next. I want to give you a second example from Ramayana.

Okay. And then we'll stop and get into questions and answers. Very similar.

I tried to make the picture that looks similar. Ramayana has more than 500 astronomy observations. Again, we can split them into those two categories.

This category is near earth phenomenon, repeats frequently. Okay. Positions of the moon, eclipses, planetary positions and so on.

The other side is driven by, now you must, you are experts, by the phenomenon known as the precession of equinoxes. There we go. Actually, the answer is very fast because we have gone through it.

Next. Yuddha kanda of Ramayana. They use the word kanda instead of parva.

Okay. Lakshmana, sorry, Hanuman and the party have found Sita. It's in Lanka.

They came to Kishkindha and in a hurry, you know, everybody left for Lanka. You might have read it Ramayana or seen the TV serial and whatnot. Everybody is walking towards Lanka.

And during this time, Lakshmana is describing the different various things on the, in the sky. Obviously, they are taking help of various stars and making sure they're traveling in the right direction during night and so on. And he describes the pole star of Ramayana times.

Brahma Rashi Vishuddhashya Shuddhashya Paramashya Archishmantah Prakashante Dhruvam Sarve Pradakshinam. Quick, next one. So, crude translation.

Great sages are making parikrama around the fixed or settled Brahma Rashi, Abhijit, the pole star. So, he's describing the pole star of Ramayana times. Well, you're experts now.

You know when Brahma Rashi last time was the pole star. When was it? 13,000 years ago, around 12,000 BC. We can do the exact math, you know, be more precise.

Next. And find out the closest that the NCP was to the star Brahma Rashi was in 12,048 BC. We can go plus minus 1,000 years.

Maybe plus minus 2,000 years to be on safe side. Go next. So, that gives me the boundary.

10,000 BC and never after that. Again, I put my scientific hat. I have the description.

I have the empirical proof. Next, I bring it together. Go slow.

Testing, empirical, various pole stars. I showed you the circle. Everybody knows it.

Next is the prediction for Brahma Rashi. We can find out 12,000 BC. You said it, right? And what is the explanation? Lakshman mentioned Brahma Rashi as the pole star.

Brahma Rashi Vishuddhasya Shuddhashya Paramashya Archishmantah Prakashante Dhruvam Sarve Pradakshinam. So, if you accept this reference, if you put this together, we can say that Maharamayan did not happen even a day late than 10,000 BC. Again, where is my skeptic? Okay, just one reference.

Yeah, little bit of Brahma Rashi. I don't necessarily understand this thing. Any other? Ramayana has seven different times.

I'm going to quickly describe you. This is from the Yuddha Tantra. I'm going to describe three references from three different other Tantra of Ramayana.

In Aranya Tantra, it's the time of Lakshman, Ram, and Sita in Panchavati. And it's a time of Hemanta season, the season that we are in right now. Hemanta season would be over in 10 to 12 days with the winter solstice.

And Lakshman is describing the sky again. It seems Lakshman's job to describe the sky. Lakshman says, During this Hemanta Rathu, sun is setting on the horizon, the western horizon, near Nakshatra Pushya.

If our times, you go right now tonight and you can see it, what you will find is sun sets around Purvashada, Uttarashada, Lakshman is saying it sets around Pushya. Again, use the precision of equinoxes and you can find out exactly what that happened. The timing comes 11,500 BC to 17,500 BC.

In our times, month of Ashwin is our, what you call, Dasara, right? That's the Ashwara time. It comes in a Shraddha Rathu, you know, after rainy season. In Ramayana times, it is described as the time of Vasanta Rathu, like our Holi.

This is Vasanta Rathu and month of Ashwin is passing away. How are we going to find Sita? Ambedi is saying to his party. That is from Anadarkand, Sundarkand.

And then there is one more, the description of Chaitra. Everyone knows when Ram was born, right? The Indian month, what was that? Chaitra, April is the English month. Chaitra, Shukla, Navami, right? In our times, it appears during the Vasanta Rathu, second part of Vasanta Rathu.

The description is, Chaitram Sri Manayam Masa, Punya Pushpita Kanana. This is a very auspicious month of Chaitra, it is being said in Ramayana, when the forest are blooming with flowers. Now, that can happen in Chaitra, early Chaitra.

Well, but Ramayana has to happen in our times. We are definitely sure of that, it did not happen in our times. If you go back 2000 years, that is the early part of Vasanta, we know it definitely did not happen in that time, okay? So, if you want to back, back, back, again use the precision of equinoxes and you have to find another time when the forest could be blooming with flowers.

And we have to go to a beginning of Himanta Rathu or Sharad Rathu, then again forest, our Dashara season, we can say that the forest are blooming with flowers. Four references I gave, all of them refer to 10,000 BC and in the past, like 4,000 years, 5,000 years, 6,000 years, but not any time after that. Next.

I will stop here and I would love to take questions and answers. Why restrict yourself to the last 36,000 years only? Why could you not take it back by one more block of 26,000? Excellent question. I am going to repeat the question for you and you tell me if I got your question correct.

I went through 26,000 years, I didn't even go that far, but I went backwards to find the time when Arundhati was walking ahead of Vasishta, for example. The question he is asking is, why can't you go back another round of 26,000 years and see what happens? Suppose Arundhati is walking ahead of Vasishta, then he would say, hold on, this 11,000 BC to 4,500 BC is not the unique instance when Arundhati was walking ahead of Vasishta. Lucky for us, I did that of course.

I went back to 40,000 BC and 60,000 and 80,000 and all of that. There is something called, I don't have a time to explain it, but something called proper motions. Each of these stars, although they appear steady, they have their own motions in the declination direction and right ascension direction and the way it happens, both of them are going sort of away from the north, but Vasishta is going twice faster than Arundhati.

So, when you go backwards to another round of precision of equinoxes, it so happens that Vasishta is now towards the north in compared to Arundhati and this unique situation as far as the past is concerned, where Arundhati was walking ahead of Vasishta appeared only once in the whole life of the earth. Only once, where this 11,091 BC to 4,500 BC. Now, going forward 11,000 years from now, again you can see Arundhati walk ahead of Vasishta.

But if you go in the past, only one instance of that 6,500 years. Sir, have you ever thought about linking the date of the Mahabharata to the Indus Valley Civilization? Because a lot of historians seem to suggest that it was actually the same civilization and it was not the theory about Aryans coming from Central Asia has been discarded by a lot of Indian historians. Okay.

Okay. So, couple of questions there. So, have I linked the Mahabharata, Ramayana to the Indus Valley Civilization and then you threw in the Aryan invasion theory.

Okay, let me ask you, let me see how alert you were listening to this. I did not use the word AIT anywhere. But what is the timing of AIT? What do people say? Those who say, we don't know who they are.

You know, it's a hearsay. 1500 BC, sometimes they push it to 1800 BC. Okay, 45, I'm saying here, I'm asserting here and ready for challenge from anyone in the world.

Mahabharata war did not happen even a day late than 4500 BC in the best scientific method you can imagine. If you don't accept this, not you, I mean, we have to change the definition of science and objectivity and rationality. So, AIT just goes out there.

Okay. Now, your second question about the Sindhu Saraswati Civilization. Actually, what does that tell you? Again, Sindhu Saraswati Civilization, its timing is now getting extended, right? So, we know the mature phase is like 1800-2000 BC, but we go back 3000 BC, 4000 BC, 5000 BC.

Mehergarh, now it's in Pakistan, it goes back, in Baluchistan, it goes back to 7000 BC. Rakhigarhi, we found is 5500 BC and all of that. So, where is it happening? In India, right? The older India, we can't use the current boundaries of India.

It is happening here. So, they have to be similar civilization, not like a Mahabharata civilization or Ramayana civilization, our civilization, different kinds of it. And there is additional research, but it goes into another area altogether, like deciphering Indus Valley civilization, Indus Valley script and whatnot.

So, I'll not go there just today for that reason. Excuse me, sir. Is it if the dating of both Ramayana and Mahabharata, if it is related to the cosmic or Arundhati and if it happens that the circle of all the stars are moving, then can we see that it happens again and again? Okay, if you are paying attention, I did answer, he asked the same question in a different language.

As far as the Arundhati Vasishta is concerned, there was only one instance going back in the past from 11,091 to 4500 BC, when Arundhati could be seen walking ahead of Vasishta, never before, as far as that preface goes. Sir, why do you date the dates? So, you use an empirical method to determine the certainty of the dates of the events in the Mahabharata. Are you also then claiming that whatever is written in the Mahabharata is in fact fact and in fact did happen? No, that's too much to claim.

What happens is this, I'll give you an example. Everyone knows the story of King Shivaji, Raja Shivaji. If you read his story, I mean not written by him, combined together, there is a mention of Goddess Bhavani giving him a sword, Bhavani sword.

I mean you'll hear in some descriptions and Vinoba Bhave commenting on it once said, he said Bhavani talwar alright, it's called tarwar, tarwar or talwar, Bhavani talwar alright, but it was made in Portugal. Actually, Shivaji Maharaj got it manufactured because the Portuguese technology was considered one of the best for that kind of weaponry and then because he had a shraddhan nishta for Goddess Bhavani, so you remember, I mean you have some prasad, you put it in front of a God, you do all your puja and you then take that as a blessing from a God, in that conviction he took it. So story, now this is my interpretation, somebody will insist that it was literally given by Goddess Bhavani.

Again, we have to go back to empirical proof. Does that answer your question? Just because I am saying this one sentence, am I claiming everything else in Mahabharata to be literally true? Why would I? There can be many things which are symbolic as well. Like it is mentioned that Arundhati walking ahead of Vrishishtha or the other wise, so that is kind of symbolic.

So it is not literally, it may not be literally mentioned in the stars, but it is symbolic and then later we came to know about it that it is actually referring to the stars. And so many things in Mahabharata and Ramayana which may seem to be mythology may be very symbolic as well. Referring to something else and we might be thinking that it is actually what they are saying may be mythology.

Okay, so but what you are saying is maybe what's not. You know how the science works? Okay, it's a fearless game. You actually put your food there.

And so you know what? Nothing symbolic or whatever it is, maybe. No, you take it. I think, I assert that this is so.

And willing to be wrong. Anyone has heard name Sir Ken Robinson? He is a great educational researcher. He has said, I am not saying, he is quote, that you have to be wrong to be innovative or creative.

But unless you are willing to be wrong, you cannot be creative. So you have to actually propose your theory, put the theory out there, skin in the game, test it out. But now just to answer another question that you said.

Well, Arundhati, Vasishta could be symbolic. Right? Could be symbolic. Well, that's what these people were saying.

But the reason they were saying is because they could not show actually Arundhati walking ahead of Vasishta. The day that changed, it's no longer symbolic. We have empirical proof.

Now, is that the only empirical proof? No. I showed you. There is a Vishwa Nirvana.

Forget Arundhati, Vasishta. Still Mahabharata can be shown to be not a day late after 4700 BC. Now, then we bring Arundhati, Vasishta back and says, OK, all these references are leading to that same timeline.

Is it all symbolic? Maybe somebody will say, just like these days, people may write a science fiction book. Somebody used a software, figured out these dates, all interesting things when it happened, put together as a novel. OK, let's take that as a possibility.

Well, then at least we all must admit because to go backwards, we need these all software, astronomy, data, astronomic equations, simulations, which we claim came after Newton and Kepler and Einstein. But we know that the Mahabharata, the latest, I mean, the oldest edition that even we can find is 2000 years old. So at least agree that there were like a father of Newton, some great, you know, of Einstein and Lagrange and Kepler, at least 2000 plus years before Newton.

So if you take that track, you know, it's a symbolic and all of that. We go on another track. It's written on the back of my book, that argument, because somebody has already raised it.

What about the Yugas? What about the Yugas? I tell you guys, the first list I gave you of the frequently asked questions and these frequently asked questions. Great question. What about the Yugas? Can you specify more? Yeah, I mean, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga.

Kali Yuga is assumed to be around 3100 BC and generally with Parikshit and his device started the Kali Yuga. And often that is used to, you know, point the date of Mahabharata. OK, I got the question.

Yeah. So I'll state first thing, which is within Mahabharata itself, within the text of Mahabharata, 125000 verses, there are nine references to Kali, not necessarily Yuga, but Kali. And all of them, when they appear, they appear.

You remember the game of Jyuta that the Yudhishthira was playing with Shakuni and all. They appear as the certain numbering, certain combinations when they are playing it as a Treta, Kruta, Dvapara and Kali. In fact, when Ashwatthama is also scolding Kauravas, don't get into this war.

He says, you know what, it's not about Kruta and Dvapara and Treta. It is about bow and arrows. And then Krishna is also talking to Karna and he also says, when the war begins, it won't be Kruta and Treta.

Again, he's referring to it won't be about playing the games. It's about the war and things like that. Now to the second question, that so, so there is in Mahabharata itself, there is no reference whatsoever that will allow anyone to take any Mahabharata reference and connect with this later theory.

You see it mostly in Puranas of this Treta, Dvapara, Kali, Yuga and certain years and so on. Now Mahabharata itself has five theories of Yuga. So if someone, somebody wants to make the connection, my question is which of the five theories you want to start with? Just as a quick answer.

I have tried, played with all five of them and none of them matches. Now to his question of connecting Krishna's passing away with Kali Yuga and so on. Astronomically, somebody thought of 3102 BCE as beginning of Kali Yuga.

And then Srimad Bhagavad Purana has one verse which says when Krishna left the planet, Kali Yuga began. OK, now when did Krishna leave the planet? Think of a mathematics, many simultaneous equations. OK, so Kali Yuga beginning 3102 BCE.

Krishna left the planet and Kali Yuga began. So Kali Yuga began, Krishna left the planet 3102 BCE. Are you with me? And then Mahabharata says after the war, plus 36 years, Krishna left the planet.

So take that 3102 BCE, add 36 years to it. That comes to 3138. Now please follow that BC logic.

OK, 3138 BCE. So people have come to that number. Again, none of the astronomy evidence matches for 3138 BCE.

None of the astronomy evidence matches for anything around 3000 BCE. None. And there are 60 claims who claim that.

OK, very good question again. Mere anusar kuch nahi. I am telling you what Ramayan ke anusar kya hai aur Mahabharata ke anusar kya hai.

Mahabharata mein, let's take another reference from Mahabharata. When Bhishma started ruling, this is before the big war and everything, many years before. When Bhishma started ruling, there is a description that Bhishma brought Krita Yuga.

The way Bhishma was ruling was such that it was a time of a Krita Yuga. When Parshuram, Parshuram after he got rid of the miscreants, there is a description. When Parshuram started ruling, it was a rule as if of a Krita Yuga.

And in Ramayan also there is a reference of Dasaratha and some others. The times were such that the time was that of Krita Yuga. So just to answer your question.

Mahabharata has definition of Yuga. As I said there are five specific definitions but this is the sixth. It says Raja Kalasya Karanam.

A quick one, how many of you have heard the word Phalahetu? See, think carefully. Many times we think we predict and then it happens. Like because we are sometimes you know mesmerized by astrology and what not.

But think of a Phalahetu. A thing happens just like you are stumbling on a step and you turn and say what happened? So it already happened and now you are going backwards trying to find the reason. Phalahetu.

Now you are trying to find the cause. Now combine that with Mahabharata definition of a Yuga. Raja Kalasya Karanam.

King, a king by his own behavior and administration brings a certain type of Yuga. But Mahabharata or Ramayana both have no reference whatsoever to this later development of many millions years of Yuga or Krita, Treta, Thousand, Sandhya Kaal, none of that. Thank you for this great talk.

So I will play the skeptic that you were referring to again and again. And so you have based all your conclusions on astronomical data, right? But we haven't, maybe you have considered the other data like archaeological and other stuff that you were mentioning. But this talk was only about astronomical, right? Now there is this counter argument about how you can map the same conclusions on to other observations in fields like archaeology and geology and stuff, right? So one of the things that Dr. Elst writes is about the evidence of chariots and when the wars on chariots were happening that is when Mahabharata is supposed to have happened and we discussed before this and you said that absence of evidence is not really evidence of absence.

But that's not, I don't think that's how science should work, right? Of course, I mean there is… It should not work. I mean it shouldn't, you can't say that because there is no evidence then probably this is it, right? So what I am saying is that although this is very interesting that you have done all this analysis and it's hard to refute this as such. But what is the likelihood of, you know, we know that all these texts, they have been written, they have been various versions of it.

And there are lot of interpolations. So what is the likelihood that someone later on while constructing story decide, okay, let me add some background to it and to make it more interesting say that this is what happened and Pashishta was, Arundhati was a head of Pashishta and because Indians have had a very good astronomical knowledge from very early on. So it was easy for them to guess, I mean to decide that this happened sometime and what is the likelihood of that to have happened? Okay, if you think, I mean I did answer that question in a sense that let us imagine this is a science fiction, okay? Then what could have happened? But I want to clarify something.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, is something that goes against the argument that are made by likes of Dr. Cohenrad Elst or Srikanth Telegiri. It goes against them because that kind of argument is not scientific, okay? Nassim Nicholas Taleb, if number of you who might have known the name, he says there is a worst kind of disease beyond this. In everything, the worst disease is people think whatever is not found until now will never be found.

Okay, now you ask me what other things I use? Archaeology. Well, I have a question. I mean archaeology is great, but start digging.

I mean what evidence have we found right now that we can link to what is written in Mahabharata? None. The answer is none. So to the possibility of somebody just taking this material and creating a story.

Science is not about being 100 percent certain. It's about more likely versus less likely or Occam's razor. You know, that's what we say.

So we look at 200 plus astronomy references and I'll give you another field of evidence. And we say Arundhati Vasishtha gives me this. Bhishma Nirvana gives me this.

Sharath season gives me this. And I go on and on and on phases and everything else. And it leads me to that date.

Now, could this all still be wrong? Well, in principle, I mean, on the normal distribution, there is a 0.001 percent possibility that it is. But that's when we have to use what is more likely versus less likely. Now, what I did is I'll take quickly Dwarka.

I'm again writing a book on it, so I won't give you the whole explanation. Cannot do more than 20 minutes. So Dwarka, 36 years after Mahabharata war, it was lost.

Krishna passed away around the same time. That's what Mahabharata says. So 5561 BCE plus 20 plus 36 years takes you to 5525 BCE.

And so I started searching that. What kind of evidence do I get? OK. Now, what many people again get into the logical fallacy is they go to the west coast of India, like Gujarat, and they find certain time when there was a flooding and say, OK, that was Dwarka.

That is like saying Mahabharata says Monday was the first day. I found Monday must be there, must be right. That is, again, a logical fallacy.

But what I looked at, I said, do I do I find any corroborative, supporting, validating evidence for 5525 BCE as the flooding of Dwarka? That's what it says. This is what I found. Just quick summary.

In fact, I found 50 references around the world and I stopped searching. I said, let me now write a book. In the Arabian Ocean, if you go back and find out a significant increase in the sea level rise, you are not going to believe this number.

It's all there. 30 years, published 30 years before. Now, it wasn't in the context of Mahabharata Ramayana.

They did not know those who published it. Do you know how much water level went up in 6th millennium BCE? That is this 5525 BCE. OK, one hundred and twenty five meters of water going up.

OK, now keep in mind that when the water goes up, the land is not sitting steady. It can go down. It can go up.

So it's kind of relative. Then there is an Indian research done on seismology, like different earthquakes. We know there was a big earthquake 30 years or 20 years ago.

But you go back. It's amazing that the evidence can be found. I'm not an expert, so I don't know what evidence they find.

But there is one big, big earthquake because actually the evidence goes away over time. But big earthquakes around 2300 BCE and it's like a rector scale six or something. This is from Cochin, you know, some of the research.

And then you go back. Lo and behold, 7500 years ago, which is 5500 BCE and seven plus rector scale earthquake. The Black Sea, do you know when Black Sea was formed as a salty water sea? Amazing thing you will find is 5525 BCE plus minus 130 years.

This is a work of two well-known geologists at Columbia University. Again, they have nothing to do with Mahabharata, nothing to do with Ramayana. They were looking for Noah's Ark.

Right down. I mean, I'm just being flexible and saying 5525 BCE plus minus 100 years. Actually, their numbers are 5525 BCE plus minus 30 plus minus 40.

And those who know statistics, if you take more samples, that's exactly what will happen. OK, go down to Barbados, which is close to America coast. OK, my another alumni, an alumnus, you know, when I did my master's, University of Alberta, chemical engineering, he was studying geology from originally from Mexico, Paul Blanchard.

He actually did some study there. Again, it is in already published. It's part of some of the books in Barbados.

There was a significant sudden rise of water of six point five meters. You want to guess the year? I think you can do a good job. Fifty six hundred years, 56 BCE plus minus 140 years.

And I can go on and on and on around the world, most of Maine and so on. In fact, when I started finding publications one after another, 50, I stopped. So that's the geological evidence.

There is additional astronomy evidence from Harivamsha and so on. And I'm I'm I have already done the work. I have to just write about it.

There is anthropological evidence. Professor Kennedy, some of you might know that name from Cornell. He passed away.

I had a correspondence with him and so on. Again, there is a big evidence, anthropological evidence. But I'm looking for anything that basically brings and corroborates this thing.

Wait. Seventy three hundred years ago. Seventy five hundred years.

That's very interesting. Because in Sanjeev Sanyal's first book, I'm actually not sure if I read it there or whether I read it in Mikhail Danilo's Lost River Saraswati. But there is a reference in the Mahabharata.

I think it's in Danilo's book that Balram actually drags the Yamuna and changes its course. Something like that. And I think Sanjeev Sanyal.

Then it is Danilo's. And I think, you know, so that this is fair. There is fair evidence that the Yamuna used to flow into the Saraswati.

And then it changed course and started flowing into the Ganga. Yeah. So, you know, there is.

And I don't have a question, but I'm just stating that that's very interesting because that's an earthquake which could have caused the shift. And Sanjeev talks about the earthquake. Yes.

Correct. So. But I want to take the opportunity to tell you something about the same thing, which is this.

Ramayan itself talks about Satlach because other river that was feeding Saraswati was Satlach. OK. Ramayan does mention Saraswati.

OK. But not the Grand River. Listen carefully.

Whereas Rigveda mentions Saraswati as the Grand River, even bigger than Ganga, but not Ramayan. Ramayan times Ganga, Yamuna are the big thing. Ramayan mentions Yamuna merging with Ganga.

OK. And Ramayan also clearly mentions Satlach which has turned west because if it doesn't turn west, it comes down and meets Saraswati before. But Ropar in Punjab or Rupanagar, what they call it, you can go there and see how sharply it turns.

Like Dr. Srinivas Kalyan Raman, you know, who has done a significant, great research in Saraswati. He actually asked me, he said, you should go and see it. I haven't had a chance to do that.

But so Ramayan refers to them as already splitting. So even the Saraswati of Ramayan times is not the Grand Saraswati of Rigveda. And that's how it should be, in fact.

Because Ramayan refers to the three Vedas. Mahabharata refers to three Vedas. They are before that.

So some people ask, in fact, Michel Daniel's book, Lost River, again, a great book. But I do feel, in fact, I'm convinced that he missed the point, which is what he's thinking is that is the Grand River of Rigveda. I like to assert that it is not.

What I mean is the river is the same area. But then where did this water come from? And he gives sufficient evidence for a good level of water in Saraswati during like 9000 BC to 4000 BC. We have to go to climatology.

Another. See guys, this never ends. Another science.

Another area of science. And what happened is the monsoon in Indian area actually became heavy after 9000 BC. And then it went down again to where it is now in 4000 BC.

So that heavy monsoon started feeding the path of Saraswati again. And my theory is that that is what was, that is what rejuvenated Saraswati. And that's what you see even in Mahabharata.

Mahabharata description says sometime Saraswati appears, sometime it has gone under the sand, sometime it is very grand and taking a turn in the eastward. Balram says, Balram was wowed to look at Saraswati turning east. But other times it's just non-existent.

It has gone under the under the sand. With the Vedas and the Indus Valley. Yeah.

So what. OK. So my timing for Mahabharata, 6th millennium BC.

My time for Ramayana, 13th millennium BC. Both of them mention Rigveda and all of that. So I am very comfortably saying that Rigveda is way before 14000.

In fact, I didn't have a time to discuss this. There are other astronomy references which actually references in Mahabharata talking of the past which takes to 15000 BC and even earlier. What effect does this change in years have actually between what has been stated and what you are stating? What I am stating and who? And whatever you are disputing to whatever X is there and you are saying it's Y. What does this lead to? OK.

Well, I am not disputing. I am asserting and the other guys are all over. Yeah.

No, I want them to dispute. They are not. They are running away.

What does this all mean? What does this lead to? What does this lead to at a very high level? For example, the. No, no, no. It's a very good question.

What it leads to is that there is this theory. That is a Western theory that is forced on us. That time is linear.

And what I mean by time is linear is that the progress is only one way of it. That we were like, you know, running in the jungles, jumping on the trees, we meaning all human beings. And it was a stone age and then such certain age and so on so forth.

And we have made a progress. No. In fact, there is a cyclical theory.

The civilization can grow to great heights and actually collapse because of many factors. They could be climatological factors. They could be cultural factors and so on so forth.

Religious factors. I mean, so civilization can collapse. I mean, that's the that's the narrative.

Even though civilization might have collapsed, it still doesn't change the fact that the progression of time has been linear. OK, now that goes into totally another area. So I would suggest a book for you to read.

Eleven Pictures of Time by Professor Sikhe Rajan. Eleven Pictures of Time. OK.

And then we can talk. You can find me Nilesh Oak at gmail.com. You type in Google Nilesh Oak. You can get to my blog.

You can make a comment there. We can talk. Another question.

Seems like your research is a lot about empirically testing the validity of the events that transpired in Mahabharata and Ramayana and not whether they actually transpired. No, no, no. You're not stating it correct.

You're not. You're misstating me. So I'm asking when they happened, right? On a time scale.

And not whether or not they actually transpired. So apart from it, this is a very general question, apart from the ARC argument, apart from possession of research and academia, what significance does this have? OK, that can be another lecture. We can do that another time.

But briefly, I responded, which is to say it is the Indian narrative because others are doing the narrative for us and telling us that Aryans came in 1500 BC or whatever the time you want to do it. OK, and that that is your narrative. That's how you think.

And, you know, it comes into how you work, how you think, what you do, everything. I have just a couple of comments. One thing is, it's a wonderful book.

I'm fully convinced. And the only reservation which I have written to you is that as we know the history of civilization today, the domestication of evidence, the domestication of animals, the domestication of plants, doesn't go back to moving 8 to 12 thousand years ago. Mine occurred 14 thousand years ago.

I mean, you have so wisely given this evidence. So this part of anthropological collaboration would have to be done. We have to wait for more evidence.

Maybe fresh carbon dating because earlier carbon datings were done and at that time the machines were not that good. And similarly, in Indus Valley civilization and at many other places, the dates have been advanced. Whenever the re-dating has been done now.

Because even in Indus Valley, dating was done sometime in Mohenjo-Daro and Rafa in 1940 or even earlier. So, if we do the same samples dating again, maybe the date will change. That's all.

The dating has already changed. About 1500 BC, based on the time span and the population. About not more than 8 to 9 thousand years ago.

Mine occurred is about this. Anyway. Second is about Yugas.

There were two or three comments about Yugas. A renowned Sanskrit scholar, Dr. Suryakant Bani has written a book in Hindi called Bharat Kantha about re-interpretation of Quranic stories. And his interpretation about Yugas is that due to several ecological disturbances again and again, like one was running upon Saraswati, our civilization lost several, at least on two or three megatons and people got displaced on a large scale.

Our history got lost. So, somebody around, let's say, 3 to 4 thousand years ago, called a Nemi Sharada Sankhoshti to recollect the history and called almost 80,000 people, 80,000 Rishis, you can say, from different places to narrate whatever narrative is there in their villages. And compiled the history.

And this person, possibly Vyas, divided the entire history of India into four parts. Like we do in geology, primaries, secondary, tertiary and quaternary stages of our history. So, similarly, the first was Ekal.

Ekal is one. And that word has got distorted into Kali. That was the first, most recent is Kali Yuga.

And then from most recent to, I mean, the end of Kali Yuga becomes Mahabharat Vah. And Parikshit V. So, from Parikshit or let's say Krishna to Ram, that is the second stage, second part of our history. So, that is called Dwapar and Dwapar would literally mean second, from Dwai.

And then from Ram to Vedic age is the tertiary, let's say, compartment. Veda comes to tertiary age. So, there is a third part and that compartmentalization is from Ram to Vedic era.

And in Ramayana, there are only three Vedas, not four. Actually, Mahabharat goes for most part the same. So, all Ram has learnt three Vedas, Hanuman has learnt three Vedas only, not the fourth one.

And then pre-Vedic history, that is the part about Puranas, which is basically transitioned from, let's say, hunter-gatherer stage to first agricultural village, that part of the story constitutes the Chatur Yuga. And this Chatur Yuga has got now distorted to Satur Yuga and Satyug. Or Chatur to Krit.

So, that is the one. Now, regarding somebody said about lakhs of years and so on. One last sentence.

About lakhs of years, there are lot of distortions in spelling mistakes because all these varieties have come down to oral history. And there are spelling mistakes at a number of places. So, just a minor change in a letter or vowel will change the entire meaning altogether.

For example, Dastarji is telling Mirpamitra that look, my son is only 13 years old. You are taking him to jungles in order to kill demons. I am 60,000 years old.

This is a big anomaly. So, obviously, there is a spelling mistake. Nobody can be 60,000 years old.

One can imagine one is 60 years old but not 60,000 years old. So, isn't your underlying premise in all of this that these things actually happened and those people were there. Absolutely.

To allow for the scope that it was a literary text. Okay, guys. Just let me stop you.

Discussion is great but I just don't want to turn into discussion and go there. Then, Professor Gupta, what you said that reminded me of the question, Ashish, that you did not, I mean, you asked but I did not answer. Which is about interpolations.

Let's accept this. Any literature, old or new, as the time passes, gets some errors added. Stories gets added and whatnot.

There are different types of errors as Professor Gupta mentioned. Translation, transliteration, transposition, transcriptions, interpolation, all kinds of errors are there. Okay.

But what we cannot do, as Professor Romila Thakur always used to argue, he says, when coming to the dating of Ramayana, what she would say is, there's a lot of interpolations. So, first sit down. Of course, she's not willing to sit down.

Let somebody else do it. That's what I call Tamasic skeptic. Skeptic, all right, but Tamasic, that person is not going to do anything.

But let's remove all the, what you call, interpolations and then decide the date. What is the problem with that? In the area of science, okay, in the area of science, Francis Bacon tried this. And I want everyone to listen to this.

Francis Bacon said a similar thing. He said, we have, our mind is prejudiced. We have to remove all the prejudice, all the superstition, everything.

And with a clean and a fresh mind, we should observe the nature and then we will know the truth. Sounds very good, right? But that same Francis Bacon couldn't get away, even when there was evidence and people were pushing him, from the notion that earth is at the center and everything is rotating around it. My point being, yes, let's accept that there are interpolations, but how would we know it? And actually, if you go to my blog site, you'll see many of those interpolations that I have discussed.

You can, by luck, of course, you can actually figure it out and you can put forward a more likely scenario versus a less likely scenario between conflicting observations. So let's treat, just to begin with, let's suppose, you know, that this is all correct and everything else. If it is wrong, we will find out.

Sir Karl Popper says, good tests kill bad theories. We survive to guess again. That's the method of science.

Regarding Romila Chakraborty's comments on interpolations, a research institute in Pune has already done that. They have come up with a critical interpolation of knowledge. And not now, it is, you know, a decade ago.

And although interpolation hasn't been removed, even then, all these references remain. Yes. Excuse me, sir.

According to, sir, your theory, is it supposed to say that pole star is always north in any name? OK. Is it constant? OK, well, I just said the pole star is not constant. That's what we discussed the whole precision of equinox's business.

We only discussed the pole star in the north direction. If we discuss the pole star in the south direction, that's another long talk or a few books on that. You know, Agastya, the Canopus also becomes a pole star.

But to answer your question, no, I mean, I'm saying exactly opposite. And I don't have to say it exists, which is the precision of equinoxes basically makes the point of north pole change. So when it changes, whatever is the distinct star next to it is considered a pole star in this 26000 year cycle.

May I? So essentially one king from the Kosala dynasty, a weak king also participates in the Mahabharata, which gives us some, you know, possibility. Yeah. So eventually that seems to disagree with the.

OK. So let me repeat. Let me restate the question what he's saying.

There are genealogies of kings for Ikshwaku dynasty, you know, right starting from there. There are what, 24, 30, 40 different kings before Ram and there are another 28, 30 kings after Ram to the time of, say, Mahabharata. Now someone might say there are 28, you know, there is not one list.

I would encourage you to go and read my blogs. I have given all different versions of it. But so there are, let's say, let's take one.

There are 28 kings in the Ikshwaku dynasty between Ram and the time of Mahabharata. There was a king named Brohadbal, Brohadbal who was killed by Abhimanyu during the Mahabharata and Brohadbal was the descendant of Ram. So there are 28 generations.

And now the question can be raised. I am saying 5561 and 12209. So it's like a 7000 years and only 28 kings.

Again, I would encourage you to read the blog. What I have shown, that is what I have shown, is that there is a sufficient evidence that any of the list, there are multiple list of Ikshwaku dynasty, any of the list are not complete. Not only that, if you put multiple list, then the list starts growing.

Because some of the kings mentioned here between two kings are not mentioned in that list. And list keeps on growing. And it becomes like a 64 and 80 and what not.

But still that list is not complete. The evidence is telling us that maybe the prominent kings are only mentioned. And to what Professor Gupta said, somewhere the knowledge was lost, some ecological disasters and people somehow trying to put together the theory from the memory.

We can do a quick test, one minute test. Okay. Any volunteer? I just need one volunteer.

Okay. So Abhitosh, if you please stand up. Okay.

In one minute you have to quickly list the names of all the prime ministers of India beginning with 1947. Speak into this. Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Murarji Desai, Chandrashekhar, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and it gets murkier, Dev Gowda, Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh.

Okay. Thank you. Right.

Okay. V P Singh. I don't know if you mentioned V P Singh.

Okay. Chaudhary Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar. My point being.

Thank you. We are taking last 50 years of history. So back to Professor Gupta's point, if there was an ecological disaster, lot of knowledge is lost.

That happened. Why ecological disasters? When some of our libraries were burnt, what happened? Like people are trying to, what we are doing, I mean many of us are doing, is trying to recollect that knowledge and put it back. Okay.

To the best of our ability. It is happening now. So if that has happened at that time, they are doing their best.

But the number of names such as these can be missed. I mean last 50 years, 60, 70 years we are talking and we can easily miss 5 or 5 names. Anyone? I have heard somewhere in internet or somewhere, like Arundhati and Vasisht rotated in circular motion with respect to each other.

Yeah. So is that true? According to your theory, I mean, if Arundhati is moving, if this is centre and Arundhati is moving ahead of Vasisht or Vasisht is moving ahead of, if they are moving in circular motion to. I got it.

I got it. Okay. That is your question, right? Okay.

I will just simplify it and say, I have considered, not just my opinion or anything, every possible motion of Arundhati, Vasisht, their dual nature star, you just name it. Okay. And that doesn't affect anything here.

That doesn't affect the conclusion. No. There are some speculative motions, there is, I mean people thought about it, then they take measurements, they say, ah, I don't have evidence.

But it doesn't matter. I mean, none of those speculative or real motions, what you call the dual nature of stars, none of these affects what I stated here. Yeah, here.

Hi. I just want, I was curious about this population factor, like when I read Mahabharata, it was mentioned that there was like 11 Akshani Sena with the Kauravas and 7 Akshani Sena with the Pandavas and the number went into lakhs and like, was it really that much? Okay. People over there fighting and like, still be existing? Okay.

Let's, let's begin with, because, you know, we talked about interpolation and whatnot. But let's begin with that is the case. Okay.

Whatever the number they state in Mahabharata is the number. What I did for Arundhati, Vasisht, or in the context of astronomy, someone needs to do that for those numbers. Go to the, you know, anthropology, go to the genetics, go to what happened, what kind of evidence you get.

I mean, I don't know the answer. Okay. So, I mean, again, what typically the scientific method does or scientific work does is it's very conservative.

It doesn't want to go beyond what it has found. And that's the right method. You can speculate, but you have to specifically say that this is a speculation.

So I don't have anything. But my point is, and again, I'm not pointing at you, but there is no one out there. I mean, there are all these questions and if we need to discover and know more about it, there are people like us who have to do it.

And all we need is a passion. And it can happen. I'm moving away from the conversation, but I think it's related to what you just answered.

I'm an undergrad student and I'm interested in all of this, but I actually don't have any clue how do I start it? Like in the first slide or something you mentioned, you just have to look for the problem and then solve it. So how do how did you get into it and how do I go about it? I'm interested in this. I think I'm passionate about it.

But how do I start? Okay. I will answer with the two points. The first point is the very fact all of you came here today.

You are participating into that. Okay. Someone asked Swatantrivir Savarkar after India won freedom in 1947.

He said, what was the cause for our freedom? Was it the Satyagraha movement? You know, and various things. And Savarkar said, yes, the Satyagraha movement was responsible in some ways for our freedom. The what you call the soot katai was also responsible for in some way.

The krantikari, you know, the people who were fighting with them with the pistols and guns, they were also responsible for it. And he also said, number thousands and thousands of Indians who otherwise did not have any specific ability. But when they were doing their everyday duties or when they were doing a puja in front of the deities, they were also praying that let India win the freedom.

All of them were responsible for the freedom that India won. So what happens? There are certain people who are producing knowledge. Okay.

There are many. I'm just one small person out of it. And all of you can, in principle, be the producers of knowledge.

There is no reason why you cannot be. But then there is a distribution of knowledge. And when you are standing outside, I mentioned, suppose now you go with this kind of information, start reading guides.

I mean, that's one. But then you have that information. You get into a common discussion at your college, school, wherever.

And some people say something like this. Again, you have to be convinced about it. Not because I say it, but that Mahabharata is our history and Ramayana is history.

And someone says something. What is your reaction? You let it go. Again, you don't have to pick a fight.

But again, I gave a question. I'll give it to all of you. One simple question.

Anytime someone is just saying some mumbo-jumbo, such vague statements. Oh, it didn't happen. Ask the question.

What makes you say that? 90% of the people will just stop in their tracks. They have no clue what they're saying. And let them say it.

And that's good. If they come up with the data. The skepticism is good.

I'm telling you. But you take certain that is skepticism like a Pushpak Viman or the multiple sarees of Draupadi and so on. Again, I don't have a time, but I've done some work, but I don't want to discuss it today.

You take something from that skeptical quadrant, the bottom left hand quadrant, and you work on it with determination, tenacity and with some luck. Daivam chaivatra panchamam bhagavad-gita se. With some luck, you transfer that to the other quadrant.

You make a revolution. You make a revolution. It's not easy to understand right now that Arundhati Vasishta is a revolution.

It's not easy to understand those four references are revolution. When people ask me, can you tell me in short, what have you done? You know what I tell them? And I'm convinced about it. Is that I said what Kepler, Newton and Einstein has done to the cosmology.

I have done to Mahabharata and Ramayana. One question. Nilesh, there are two kinds of forces, one who are making things and trying to prove that this was all mythology.

Ramayana and Mahabharata. And then we find some evidence as well as you said that less likely scenarios and more likely scenarios, right? So few years back, not too much old, so few years back there was an affidavit in the court as well that Rama was a myth. And then they changed it to Ram Setu was a myth.

So now since there are some evidences which have surfaced or you have worked on that, there are other people who are working in archaeology and other departments as well. Did any one of you try to talk to the government so that if there was a government who said in the court that Rama was a myth, now we can say that we have some evidence? OK, since I'm busy researching, I want someone else to take that task. OK, but but I mean, again, you are pointing at me.

Great. But I'm saying, guys, there is no one out there. So if somebody wants to talk to government, try it.

If you think, OK, have you written a book on this? Try writing, write one and you will know what it takes. OK, but to answer your question, I'll just take that as an opportunity. Again, this is how science works.

12,209 BCE is my date or year for the Ramayana war. OK, let's let's talk about the Nala Setu. If you just look at the water level, like sea level, actually the sea levels with respect to the bottom of the ocean today is such that as if there is no water.

For the year 12,209, I'm working with Professor Glenn Milne at Ottawa. Number of you have heard the name Graham Hancock. Have you read the books Fingerprints of God? He worked with him and I'm working with Glenn Milne.

OK, I asked him for various dates for the ocean levels and so on. Here is the problem. I'm making it in a short way.

What happens is. So if you go back 12,209 and just assume the current bottom of the ocean between Sri Lanka and India, the water goes down to such a level that there is no water. I mean, there is a land.

So where comes the question of a Nala Setu? You should ask me once I tell you that. What people don't know, many of them don't know, but there is a sufficient, enormous evidence everywhere around the world, is that when the sea level rises, many times actually the bottom also rises for various reasons, multiple geological reasons or sometimes just accumulation. So you cannot just take oceanography, go down and say, where is the need for ocean? You need different kind of science.

I'll give you two of the theories that I have and I haven't worked much on that. How many of you have how many of you have played with celibacy? You know what? That is a red color. Same kind of thing.

Right. So you. How many of you know? Just two of you.

OK, so you just turn that into a ball. You can just pull it as much as you want. I'm a polymer scientist, by the way, you know, and I work for General Electric who made that celibacy first time.

So I know what I'm talking. OK. Anyway, just as a humor.

So if you take that and let's say imagine that's two continents and you are pulling this. If you start pulling slowly again, it matters how you pull it. If you pull fast, it just breaks like a brittle fracture.

If you pull slowly, it creates a long like a spaghetti kind of thing and goes down. OK. These are two behaviors.

Consider the third, a circular rubber band. Let's say sitting there because there is no stress between the two land masses. And now let's say they are going away from each other.

If you start pulling the rubber band, what will happen? Actually, the middle rubber band will come up. You follow what I'm saying? This is a circular rubber band. So I describe you three different viscoelastic plastic elastic behaviors.

We don't know when it happened, why it happened, what kind of behavior it was, what kind of things were going between Sri Lanka, India, that landmass and when and where. I mean, we just we just don't know that. So it needs a lot of research.

But these are the three things I have in the back of my mind, you know, to test if I could. So if I may take the liberty to go way off on a tangent, we spoke about the yugas. So there are contesting claims about yugas also.

Some people say that we're currently, we happen to be in the Dwapar Yuga. There's a school. Let me stop you.

Take a tangent. But just get to the question because we discuss that. Get to the question.

If I need that, I'll ask you. Just say question. All right.

So I just wanted to ask you if there's really something to those calculations. I mean, there are two schools, one that says that we're currently in the Dwapar Yuga, one that says that we're in the Kali Yuga. So your question is, is there some truth to it? Right.

You could have just asked that. I mean, I get this frequently asked questions. OK, I'll answer in a couple of ways.

First thing is, I said Raja Kalasya Karanam. That could be one theory. The second theory could be as what Professor Gupta said, the people are trying to put together a civilization.

Just like Western civilization talked about the Stone Age and Copper Age and Bronze Age and Iron Age could be something like this. Astronomical terms. There is also another theory, not my theory.

It's floating around for a while, which is that which is this. If you want to make accurate measurements of the sky, that is 360 degree. OK.

And you start dividing that. How many of you understand declination and right ascension? Just like X and Y axis. These are polar axis.

OK. So when you start measuring those and if you want to measure that to the accuracy, more and more accuracy, you take those 360 degrees, start dividing them into arc minutes, arc seconds and sometimes even a half of the arc second. When you get into those numbers, what you will find is that 21,000, whatever number, 432,000, all that numbers that you hear as a long Kali Yuga and multiplication of that is a multiple of that 360 degrees.

How many of you know Panchang? Everyone knows Tithi? At least have heard about the Tithi? Yeah. How many of you know what is Karana? Not the Karana of Mahabharata. In a Panchang.

Karana is a half Tithi. When someone realized that a full Tithi, full measurement of Tithi is not sufficient, you need to go more precise. That's when the Karana came in.

Similarly, you look at some of the astronomy measurements, how accurate they are. So when they were measuring it and if they needed a higher level of accuracy, if you go to Bhagavad Purana, the time definition, it goes below seconds, like Trasarenu, Pranarenu, all the way to the point 0, 0, 0, 5, 6, 7 seconds. Unless there is a need for it, you may not go.

I mean, what's the point of that exercise? Now, just because I said it doesn't mean I exactly know why they did it. I'm not saying that. But the fact there is a fraction, fraction, thousand and hundred, millionth of a fraction of a second measurement exists and it is described in some ancient literature.

It's something worthy of study. Does that answer your question? All right. Do you have any more questions? See, I answered all the questions.