Emily Chan
The passages describe the sun as being “pierced” with gloom and darkness. They also proposed that evil beings had caused the sun’s “magical arts to vanish.”
The passages do not mention the story of Rahu and Ketu, which is a more modern Hindu myth about the eclipse. The absence of the myth indicates that the passages were described before the story was created.
Other passages helped the astronomers pinpoint the timeline of the solar eclipse. It happened when the vernal equinox was in Orion, three days before an autumnal equinox.
It was also a total solar eclipse and must have occurred over the area where the writers of the Rig Veda lived.
There were only two possible dates on which the eclipse could have occurred: October 22, 4202 B.C., and October 19, 3811 B.C. Both dates are earlier than the current record-holders for the oldest eclipse.
A clay tablet from Syria documented an eclipse in 1375 B.C. or 1223 B.C., and a rock carving in Ireland might allude to an eclipse in 3340 B.C.
The findings proved that ancient civilizations were capable of advanced astronomical knowledge and highlighted the valuable insights that old texts can offer to modern science.
They also show that humans have had a fascination with celestial events that have been passed down to generations for thousands of years.
The study was published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage.
