Quest for knowledge is great.. but we should understand the limitations too..

It has become the fashion of the day for some people to just read up some text or commentaries on a particular subject, and then, without appreciating the fact that no subject is dealt with in any text or by any scholar in a perfect way, just to cling on to what they have understood, and accuse others of lack of knowledge and clarity..

I received a query on the techniques of reckoning of time… The complaint was that no one was able to give clear-cut answers.. 

All I have to answer is that many questions in life have no clear-cut answers.. so no one can give such perfect answers..

My detailed reply…

Time is infinite.. perhaps without beginning or end.. 

We just float like tiny, tiniest particles in that infinite terrain.. 

Nothing is really added when we try to add something to that infinity, nor anything is removed even if we try to do so.. 

The calendar conventions we apply while reckoning time are just like pegs or handles some particular seeker or traveller places or fixes on an imaginary medium, just for his own guidance..

And each person thinks that his own peg or indicator is the most valid one.. Often he presumes that his indicator is more important than the continuum which holds him.. 

Anyway the infinity is inscrutable for all of us.. even though some may claim they know better than others..

When we are standing on a hall a million kilometers tall and trying to comparing whether a person of 150 centimetres or 180 centimetres is really tall, we are just being absurd. 

The ascending order of the calendar, placing a zero reference point, are all just conventions..

Each set of people have their own way of doing it.. 

No one can say for sure which convention is right.. because, there are only conventions, and there are no right or wrong conventions..

Even in Indian Astronomy and Astrology, and cosmology.. as given in Vedas, Mahabharatham, Some Puranas including Harivamsham, there are varying perceptions.. 

And the language used in various texts are amenable to opposing interpretations too..

So talking of research and talking in accusing terms that scholars or preachers or teachers or bishops or purohits are not able to answer your question only highlights your lack of attention or care to appreciate the basic issue..

The location is defined by various persons or groups or cultures according to their standardized measuring tools or calibration techniques and such techniques are not universal..

So each can measure time or for that matter any material according to the calibration techniques devised by him and units defined by him.

Someone can measure length in metres, some in feet, and so on..

Everyone is right..

No one is wrong..

If you think that only the techniques known to you, or techiques you have come across in life are the right ones, then your progress stops there.

Calendar techniques vary according to conventions.. Even modes of planetary calculations vary in the so called standardized forms of astrology and astronomy in India..

Here, there are many texts with different perceptions, there are different modes like Drik Ganitham, Vakya Ganitham, and many hybrids in between.

So BC, AD, BCE etc are just conventions devised by some group of men..

Others come to know of them through texts and publications and many versions are seen.. There is no right or wrong in it

Conventionally the end of Dvapara Yugam and start of Kaliyugam is reckoned with the Swargarohanam of the Lord..

But the exact moment of Swargarohanam, the exact mode etc are not uniformly documented in any of the texts.. be it Mahabharatham, Srimad Bhagavatham, Harivamsham.. etc.. and if some attempts in that direction are made some some self appointed experts later on, such attempt lack authenticity..

If Malayali follows Kolla Varsham, there is some peg devised for that computation.. All astrologers know about it.. 

But there is no purpose served by comparing that computation qualitatively or quantitatively with any other system

No two systems, no two things are amenable to comparison in absolute terms.

We are human beings, with lot of imperfections.. 

Our purpose and merit depends entirely in surviving such imperfections.. 

We can impress others by raising queries, and pointing out even to scholars that they are not able to answer the queries...

There are more questions, many more questions than anyone can answer...

And we are here to live in this world and not to raise questions and demand answers..

Quest for knowledge is great.. but we should understand the limitations too..