Comment 16 for bug 1710444

namaste tanmoy -

[1] I'll address the first point in https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1710443 , since it is directly relevant there. Shortly, you're mistaken.

Agree with [2]. I was not aware of stellarium support for this separate category. Using it to separate raashi-s and naxatra-s is indeed a good idea - if one can still keep boundaries.

@alex - are the last 2 fields in `3 18 66.82 1.9 20.80803147 6 -66.82 2 N27 N01` of any significance at all? Can they correspond to asterisms?

[3] I don't understand this statement at all. To the extant I can guess, you seem to mean identification and naming of naxatra-s by the term "ancient data", and imply that current observations are not relevant to practicing the vedic tradition. If so, as a practicing gRhya ritualist (who has therefore read the gRhya-sUtra-s) who has some basic familiarity with shrauta-rituals (having witnessed some of them), and who has studied the vyAkaraNa and Chandas vedaanga-s in the traditional setting, I can confidently say that this assertion is wrong. For example, most of the entire class of Apastamba ritualists did not observe the commencement of veda study during the last full moon due to the lunar eclipse (a current observation). One can further quote many sUtra-s from the gRhya, shrauta and even vyAkaraNa-s corpora which clearly motivate observations. Same with temple rituals. Even more, one can refer to this series of articles - http://indiafacts.org/vedic-system-of-chronology/ , http://indiafacts.org/of-vedic-system/ to see how current observations are essential to correct practice of vedic traditions. One can for that matter even question what motivated this committee https://archive.org/stream/HistoryOfCalendarPanchangaCommittee/History-of-Calendar-Panchanga-Committee#page/n41/mode/1up set up by the Indian government.

If despite this, you're uncomfortable with where we're headed, I'm fine with forking and having different sky-cultures. FWIW, I agree that we'll eventually end up with multiple Indian skycultures because there is clear drift and difference - but that's when one can trace such differences solidly to traditions and texts.

PS: Responses starting tomorrow until next wednesday will be delayed as I'll be travelling to witness the total solar eclipse.