Atri's Solar Eclipse

Rig Veda is a very old Sanskrit language text of religious and historical significance in India. Rig Veda is the primary part of holy texts of Brahmin/Vedic religion. It has been brought down to present time through oral metrical tradition. The dating of Vedas has been a matter of major controversy because the early 19th century European Indologists, who were exposed to the Vedic texts for first time, perhaps prematurely and arbitrarily dated all Vedas to around 1400 BC. Many Indologists persist with this date even to day without providing adequate reason as to why they accept this date. Many astronomical observations in the Veda texts, clearly are valid for an older period, suggesting that some parts of Vedas are older corresponding to anywhere between 2000 BC to 5000BC.

Vedas are compilation of suktas or hymns from many different Rishi’s over a vast span of historical time as evidenced by different astronomical references there in. Vedavyasa, long time ago, bundled various thousands of Vedic hymns, generated over long periods previous to his time, in to different groups called Rig, Yajur, and Sama etc much after their creation. Rig Veda, as we now know, 1017 suktas consisting of nearly 10800 ‘Rik`s’ or hymns with more than a few hundred ‘Drishtrara’ or visionary composers. Each prosodic Rig Veda sukta has a Deity or ‘Devata’ in whose praise it is composed, name of visionary (composer) or ‘Drishtrara’ and a ‘metre or Chandas’. Many of Rig Veda chapters or Mandalas are associated with one Rishi or his family, clearly suggesting a period of many generations of contributors to texts. Fifth Rig Veda Mandala called Atri Mandala is associated with Rishi Atri the head of the family. Atri and his wife ‘Anasuya, the un-jealous’ are held in great reverence in subcontinent to date. One of the stars in the constellation Ursa Major, called ‘Sapta Muni Mandala’ in Vedic times, was named after Atri (ref Brihat Samhita from circa 500AD). The Vedic people called Megrez in Ursa Major as Atri.