Answer to Your Questions - Lunar Calendar
Dear Hanumat Swami Maharaj:
Pamho. AgtSP. Hare Krsna!
Thanks for letting me know what you need to help you understand this subject matter. I'm not writing a paper which would include a glossary of terms and it's hard to know what you already understand. So this clarification should help me in my response.
1. HpS - AGTSP Hope your drugs help your service! What is a Solar Transit?
Well, if I hadn't taken them, I probably would have risked a much shorter life span and at this point that would certainly limit my service.
Regarding your question, "what is a solar transit?", a solar transit is supposed to mean when the sun crosses a celestial sign of the zodiac.
ASA - Jaya! Simple and clear.. From the Frog to the Elefant. We got it. AGTSP paoho. Whoop! WHoop!
These signs are derived from the constellations of night sky that lay in the daily path taken by the sun in its course through out the year. This path is called the ecliptic.
HpS - What is a tropical sign? What are Nakshatras?
A tropical sign is one of the 12 signs associated with the sun's path troughout the year. It starts when the sun crosses over the equator from its southern path to its northern path. It is derived from the night time zodiac but doesn't change over the millenium. The Hindus recognized that the sun signs and the night signs varied over time; this is called procession.
ASA - How many years is the cycle of the procession?
HpS - Does what for us now? Ha! Ha! Ha(re)! It is just like talking French to a Chinaman for us common folk!!! Honestly. You have to define the terms assuming you are starting with people who have a simple newspaper level of astronomical understanding. Did you know that a 12AU7 was a dual pentode vacum tube? -{:O) More News!!!
It really would help if you could take a little time to visit the website, www.astroviewer.com. I think that following a Vaisnava lunar calendar should include understanding it. Furthemore, SP really made alot of emphasis of understanding the Vedic cosmology which is a the heart of the Vedic lunar calendar. If we don't do that, than why follow the lunar calendar at all? It would be alot simpler to just celebrate the same holiday's every year, just as we do with our birthdays. More later.
Ys, ST das
ASA - Jaya! Thank you. AGTSP In this Bhakti vaibhava course we are systematically reading the Bhagavatam and the declarations of Prabhupada are kind of to the contrary. Not completely. It is more like we should read about the creation, Sarga, Visarga, Virat rupa, Hiranya garbha, and get a reasonable understanding of these things, but it is not necessary to know then in all the detail that the SB presents them. The same with Cosmology, Astrology, Ayurveda, we should have a practical understanding of them for our service and then we should be expert in the things that relate to our service. For example, you probably have a reasonbly sane idea like we do why we are vegetarian and why we are not vegan, but we don't know the detailed statistics of animal abuse reactions of the brain to different bovine animal fats and other sources of fats and sugars.
To make a debate and convince people at that detailed level you need to know this. So we need to know some general principles of astrology and to be able to judge you as an expert and then take your expert advice.
Epistemology, Ki Jai!