First Recorded Total Solar Eclipse In Human History

In a paper published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, researchers Mayank Vahia of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai and Mitsuru Soma of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo proposes that the first recorded total solar eclipse is referenced in the Rig Veda, which the researchers have identified as Atri’s Eclipse. 

Though the Rig Veda is dated around 1500 BCE, the paper hypothesized that the actual eclipse took place much earlier. The reference to the eclipse in question appears in Chapter 40 of Book 5 of the Rig Veda. The reference appears in a form of verse where Svarbhanu, an Asura or demon is said to have pierced the sun with darkness which caused much bewilderment among the life-forms on earth. Indra, then, is said to have smashed down the Asura from heaven for his act of sacrilege (hiding the sun in darkness) and the sage Atri is then invoked in order to save the sun and return it to its original splendour to restore the balance of the universe. The peculiarity about this verse is that it does not refer to the better known Puranic story about Rahu and Ketu about the origin of an eclipse, which at the very least suggests that Atri’s Eclipse predates the eclipse mentioned in the Samudra Manthana episode of the Vishnu Purana. 

Taking references from Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s book ‘The Orion or Research into the Antiquity of the Vedas’ (1893), the researchers have theorized the date of the eclipse as being three days prior to the Autumnal Equinox and it was in the year when the Vernal Equinox was in Orion constellation. The eclipse achieved totality at the geographic location where the Vedic people were living at that time. Accounting for the drift of Vernal Equinox across the sky (which is currently at Pisces), calculations put the Vernal Equinox at Orion approximately during 4000 BCE. 

However, this interpretation creates its own puzzles. The calculations and simulation of the eclipse determine that such an event could have taken place either on 22nd October 4202 BCE or 9th October 3811 BCE. But such an eclipse traverses an arc that only covers the higher latitudes way beyond the boundaries of ancient India. The paper proposes the eclipse in its totality to have been visible from Central Asia which forms the southernmost point on the arc of totality. But Tilak in his 1903 book ‘Arctic Home of the Vedas’ argues that Vedic people might have once resided somewhere around the Arctic circle as there are many passages in the Rig Veda that mentions the phenomenon of continuous sunlight for days which is only possible near and beyond the Arctic circle. 

Controversially, this theory lends credence to the Aryan migration hypothesis which is already a politically charged subject of discussion with evidence available both for and against it. But it is absolutely clear that Rig Vedic people had a long lineage of collective memory which they treasured as a cultural heritage as it is only through careful propagation of this collective memory can a society record events around 1500 BCE which had actually taken place nearly three thousand years earlier. 

Citation:

Vahia, M., & Sôma, M. (2023). AN EXAMINATION OF ‘ATRI’S ECLIPSE’ AS DESCRIBED IN THE RIG VEDA. Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 26(2), 405–410.

Read the original article at: https://abhijitchatterjee.substack.com/p/first-recorded-total-solar-eclipse