Indian Chronology (Solar, Lunar and Planetary): A Practical Guide to the Interpretation and Verification of Tithis, Nakshatras, Horoscopes and other Indian Time-records, B.C. 1 to A.D. 2000 c17.2

c17.2

82. Eclipses are a most valuable and unerring historical record, and eclipses are freely cited in Indian historical documents. Accordingly, the date of occurrence of solar and lunar eclipses has been indicated in Tables X and XII by means of the symbol ● for solar eclipses and ʘ for lunar eclipses. A solar eclipse can occur only at new moon and a lunar eclipse can occur only at full moon, and as full moons are not specially indicated in Tables X and XII, every lunar eclipse is shown merely as occurring in a particular lunar month. The actual date of a lunar eclipse can be found by working out the exact ending moment of the full-moon tithi, i.e., *panchadasi* or *paurṇamī*. For this, of course, it will be necessary to add the collective duration of 15 tithis, i.e., 14·76 days (Eye-table), to the mean moment of new moon and also to the moon's and sun's anomaly at that moment and add to, or subtract from, the mean moment of full moon the sum of the sun's and moon's equations. (See examples worked out in sections 93 and 94.)