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The Historical Rama

By Kshitij Sharma, November 16, 2007

The horoscope of Lord Rama is presented in the article on Rama and Krishna. According to Ramayana, the date of birth of Rama is the Shukla Paksha Navami of Chaitra Masa. Unfortunately, there is no mention of any year or a reference to a date in present time through which an unambiguous claim can be made. Even more unfortunately, unambiguous in Kaliyuga means a reference to dates within the western calendar.

What is mentioned in the epic is the planetary combination and location of planets in various signs and houses at the moment the Lord was born. I came across a website The Historical Rama, which attempts to solve this puzzle of finding out a date where this planetary combination was possible. It uses a planetarium software (but does not mention which specific one) and arrives at 12:30 PM on 10th of January, 5114 BCE as the date and time of birth. Precession of Equinoxes takes care of moving the Ram Navami, which usually falls in April in present times, to January, in about 7000 years in the past.

It is a good attempt and I hope it helps to put an end to the discussion raging in our country on Rama and His existence. I was hoping it would clarify the position of Mercury in His chart – where I maintain that it is in eleventh house and some of the readers are of the opinion that there is a Budhaditya Yoga in the chart.

It would have been wonderful if it had some way of putting an end to the controversy of the place of birth as well.

Postscript as on May 4th 2012: The site of Historical Rama is not active anymore. The domain expired some time back and the owners did not bother to renew the domain. It is a nothing but a travesty… However, thanks to Wayback machine, it is possible to look at some expired pages. I have replaced the link with the Wayback link. The dates of various events is mentioned in this page – http://web.archive.org/web/20100609171913/http://historicalrama.org/dateevents.html. There is another site http://historicalrama.com/, but I am not sure if this is a 100% copy.

There is another site http://bharathgyan.com/ that has published a book on this topic – worth visiting. It maintains some articles on the site, but not as extensive as the main site that does not exist anymore.

Postscript on September 19th 2013: This is a good article on Speaking Tree about LORD RAMA MYTH OR HISTORICAL SUPER HERO. Please go through it. Very interesting and very informative.



4 comments

  • Comment by amit choudhury on December 12, 2007 at 3:46 pm

    This is a piece of great research and should be motivated and encouraged.Jai SRI RAM

  • Comment by S.Ramjee on December 21, 2007 at 5:08 pm

    In my opinion the entire exercise as to whether there is any truth in ithihasa and purana is not called for. One’s beleif needs no recommendation or research. It is purely personal.In india religion is being used as a political wepon. Let us leave every thing as they were and respect the sentiments

  • Comment by ann.k on January 31, 2008 at 1:29 pm

    Great seers of today claim Krishna was born on 20th of July, 3228 BC; It was the year Srimuka, the month of Sravana, the fortnight named Bahyla, and the day of Ashtami. The Star was Rohini and the time was 5 A.M.

    Kali Yuga began 20th December, 3102 BC the very time and moment Krishna took Mahasamadhi. So great was his influence on the world, that merely by leaving his body the entire world began rapidly losing dharma.

    Everything in the universe is organized and structured. The laws of creation function in a certain way. It is my firm belief that, at least great saints, when they are reborn they get born on a consequetive month than when they died. This also attest claims I have read that we migrate from sign to sign in our evelution and rebirth.

    For example, Shirdi Baba died October 15th, 2.30 p.m., on Vijaya Dasami day in 1918. This means if he was born again, it would be in the month of November. Sai Baba has always said he is Shirdi Baba reborn; he was born on November 23, 1926.

    Another example: Sri Ramakrishna died 16 August 1886. Ever since she was young, Mata Amritanandamayi from Kerala has claimed in secret to her closest people that she is Sri Ramakrishna come again. Amritanandamayi was born 27th September 1953.

  • Comment by Vaasudev swami Tirth on September 27, 2012 at 12:03 am

    Why do we almost all are interested to dig out the physical History of any great Historical character.How it helps us? why the people are not learning to adopt the virtues of great Holly Persons whom we call as BHAGVANA.What difference it makes by creating huge Temples when crores of our people are not getting pure water,food,residences.health facilities and education.We have billions and trillions websitesfull of informations on internet. What most of us learn and adopt to help the poorand weak population? Hari Om…Vaasudev swami Tirth

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