.Many of us know Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak as a freedom fighter, who pioneered the movement against British Raj, which later continued by Mahatma Gandhi, leading our independence.

Some of us also know him as Vedic scolder who wrote his commentary ‘Geeta Rahasya’ on Bhagavad Gita.

But, very few know about his contributions in astronomical analysis of Vedic scriptures and using that to date the Vedas.

The most common belief among people is that Vedas were written down starting from 1500BC, which is actually an arbitrary date, without any literary, scientific, or astronomical basis.

This also results in people incorrectly believing that Indus Valley civilization, is pre-Hindu, as it pre-date the so-called 1500BC as the start of the Vedic period.

Lokamanya Tilak did a detailed analysis of various Vedic mantras mainly from sutra literature, mapping them to the astronomical conditions and pushing the dates back for ‘Sutras’ themselves by multiple thousands of years.

Please note sutras are later additions compared to Samhitas, which are oldest and consider ‘apaurusheya’ (not authored by humans).

He published his analysis in a book, ‘The Orion: The Antiquity of Vedas’. The book is available free to read at archive.org:https://archive.org/…/orionortheantiqu…/page/n1/mode/2up

In case you have doubts about Tilak’s astronomical abilities, here is commentary by famous astrophysicist Dr. Jayant Naralikar on the book: http://repository.iucaa.in:8080/…/146E%20Lokamanya…

I was blown away when I came across this book a few years back. I plan to cover this topic in a later write-up, but please do read the book.

Let’s remember and salute, the great soul, who not only helped us gain independence but also did valuable contributions in further our understanding of Bhagavad Gita and Vedas.

शत् शत् नमन।।