âU ¬ áR YAR WýáUáZ Science Rediscovered
THE CELESTIAL LINK OF THE ANCIENTS Sandip Bhattacharya Assistant Director, B. M. Birla Planetarium, Jaipur, Rajastan
INTRODUCTION
Egypt- the land of the Pyramids, the longest river on the earth the Nile and the famous Pharaohs-Tutankhamun, Ramesis, Nefertiti, Cleaopatra and many more. The Pharaohs are long gone... more than a few thousand years at the least. But, their memories are still afresh in our minds because of their achievements and their colossal awe inspiring architectures and fabulous wealth. Many wonder, are these structures man made, did some super-humans build them or is it some alien race which created them?
Ladies and gentlemen, the historical land of Egypt mesmerises us all. Through this desert land, flows the ribbon like Nile, the life giver. A great civilisation grew up in the fertile banks of Nile. It flourished and then slowly perished over a period of two and half thousand years before the Christ. But, the civilisation left in its wake a great legacy which we are proud to inherit.
Like in many early civilizations on earth, the events in the sky influenced their spirituality and advanced planning of their everyday lives. Amun-Ra, a hawk wearing a fiery disc, the god of the gods, the supreme god, rides everyday on a boat to cross the sky. The sky itself is the arched body of the goddess Nut over earth.
Amun-Ra is the creator of this world and is the grandfather of Nut. Ra cried one day and humans formed out of his tears. Amun-Ra got angry when Nut married the earth god Geb. He asked his daughter, the air goddess Shu, to separate them.
At the day end, the sun sets in the west to shine upon some other distant land in the west on the globe. Back then, …….. thousands of years ago, for the Egyptians,…… Amun-Ra prepared for the ' first time ' each evening ……. and entered the mouth of Nut to be born again the next morning. Osiris, the first child of Geb and Nut, and the god of the dead, guided Amun Ra through the dangers of the underworld ……….. Fortunately, nothing went wrong,…… and Amun-Ra got reborn every morning ……… So, the direction east or, the east bank of the Nile, is linked with birth and life and the direction west or, the west bank of the river, with death or, the underworld. In human standards, the stars are eternal......... The seven bright stars of Great Bear shone in the sky just as bright back then as they are now. So, the god kings, the Pharaohs and their subjects saw pretty much the same stars in the pristine cloudless skies of Egypt as we see them now. There was however a small difference.
The earth is like a giant spinning top. At present, the earth ' s spinning axis points very close towards the Polaris. You join the first two stars of Great Bear- Merfak and Dhube, and straight ahead is-the pole star.
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