Introduction to Calendar Science for the 22nd Century Readers

"Why should anyone read this book?" is a natural question that may come to mind. Well! We plan to settle on Mars and the moon very soon. We will need a robust calendaring system for living on Mars. Our current earth-based calendar is earth-centric and cannot be used on Mars or any other location in the galaxies. The need for timekeeping is also an important part of living, perhaps next to the bare essentials, such as oxygen, shelter, and food.

It would be prudent to leverage what is already available and accurate, and that shows the quickest path to future needs. We will need to create a concrete framework for calendar (timekeeping) management that allows future planning and precise tracking of past dates for locations other than Earth. During the Vedic era, science and rituals were intertangled. Readers of the book may learn about the Ancient Indian astronomers who had terms for measurements of time as small as 34,000th a second, proving the Indian system of dating to be unarguably precise and, above all, scientific., The reader may learn that the North Pole changes every few centuries, a fact well documented in ancient texts.

At a minimum, the reader will certainly learn the astronomical components that confer accuracy unique to the Vedic calendar. The Lunar constellations, the sixty years of Jupiter's, and so many interesting facts are scattered throughout the book.

For example: To date, the best explanation for this particular ordering of the weekdays and their association with various grahas (i.e. planets) comes from a verse in the Aryabhatiya, composed by the Indian mathematician and astronomer Aryabhatta (Aryabhatiya, KalaKriya Pada, Verse, 16):

सप्तैते होरेशा: शनैश्चराद्या यथाक्रमं शीघ्रा:|  शीघ्रक्रमाच्चतुर्था भवन्ति सूर्योदयाद् दिनपा: ||

(Above mentioned verse): The seven Grahas begin with the slowest velocity Graha, Shani (Saturn), arranged in the order of increasing velocity. The Grahas occurring fourth in the order of increasing velocity are the lords of the successive days, which are reckoned from Sunrise.