Drik ganitha and Vakhya Pannchangams

 Drik ganitha  and Vakhya  Pannchangams

By

P.R.Ramachander

  PAnchangam   ie book giving us information about   five aspects that is Month, date,  day  , Nakshatra   and Thithi of  all days.(some people say Karana  and Yoga instead of month and date)

  Possibly in Vedic times  , certain   very intelligent people   with sharp  sight   was allotted   to  see the  planets in the sky  and note their exact  position . This was done by bare  eyes.This information  was collected  by them for   several years   , Using this data  they  plotted  the position   of each planet (Possibly 7  planets) over years  and found out their orbit. They expected  the orbit would be round   but it was oval. So they created   two  imaginary  points  Rahu and Kethu   which were   always 180   degrees away.Now  they   were  having  information  that they  needed   to create a panchang. It was not needed for them   to look at   the planet  any more   and they  did it   by  finding the position  of the planet according to their projected  speed with reference  to their first observed  position .  They   were able to predict full moon, New Moon  , eclipse  of Sun and Moon etc..  The ancient   formula of movements   was called  “Vakhyam”

     About  1500   years ago,  they   thought  of verifying   the place  of each planet as per their Panchangam  . They  saw (Drik)    the position of planets   were  not in predicted  places.So they  a marked the position observed them , took in to account the  speed calculated  earlier   and started making new Panchangams   as per  the seen point  .This was called  Drik Ganitha or Drik panchangam  . There was some difference of opinion.Some people said  that  they will  not agree  with drik panchangams  and continued using   their Vakhya panchangams, Entire  Kerala except a part of Tamil  Brahmins  use  only  Drik ganitham  .  Some of tamil Brahmins  in Palakkad   started using   Sri Rangam  Panchangam   which is a Vakya  Panchangam.  Some  Brahmins  in  Trichy , Thirunelveli   and Thanjavur still use  Vakhya panchangam only.Pambu panchangam  , arcot Seetha Rama Iyer  Panchangam   and sri rangam panchangam   are famous vakya  panchangams .  The  Acharyal madathu panchangam, Vasan Panchangam and even the  Rashtriya panchang  of the government   are  Drik  Panchangams

  However The TAMBRAS does  not accept  horoscope cast  using Vakhya panchangam  for  horoscope registration. However  all temples  follow only  Vakhya panchangam  to determine their festivals  movement of planets etc