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Art, Music, History, and Linguistics
Were Rahu and Ketu considered true planets in ancient times?
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[QUOTE="Klystron, post: 6861327, member: 614295"] Has the OP considered comparing historical sightings of periodic comets and meteor showers within the time period of the ancient texts under study? If memory serves, physics professor Robert Oppenheimer and colleagues at UC Berkeley attempted to reconcile certain Vedic and other Sanskrit textual references to celestial objects with historical sightings of (periodic) comets. IMS astronomical records from ancient China among other sources provided confirmatory data of comets and meteor showers potentially visible to scholars on the subcontinent. As an example of this concept, consider the historical sightings of Halley's comet enshrined in the [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry#Events_depicted']Bayeux Tapestry[/URL]. More specifically to Sanskrit texts, I understood Hindu references to Rahu and Ketu could refer to [S]supposed[/S] patterns in the Earth-Moon system used to calculate relevant eclipses of Sun, Earth, Moon and other known celestial objects including propitious alignments of same, along with periodic meteor showers. This begs the question whether 5th/6th Century astronomers realized periodic meteor showers might be remnants of old comets? Imagine the chagrin of a court astronomer who predicts some propitious appearance of, say, Mars and Jupiter in conjunction in order for their patron to schedule some royal event, only to have the calculated sighting obscured or overshadowed by other celestial objects. [ATTACH type="full" alt="260px-Comete_Tapisserie_Bayeux.jpg"]323146[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]
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Were Rahu and Ketu considered true planets in ancient times?
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