Missing links: The real concept of Surya Siddhanta oscillating ayanamsa

The verses 3.9 to 3.12 of Surya Siddhanta are the most troubling and at the same time the most interesting part of the siddhanta. Burgess got confused by these verses. He was troubled why ayana was indicated in the direction of the East first when the VE point moves westwards in the precession. An oscillation somehow satisfied the concept and gave birth to the libration theory that is stated by all the commentators of Surya Siddhanta.

Few others were disturbed by the existence of these verses in entirety and called it 'a later interpolation'.

After going through my article "The ayana", one can easily make out that the surya siddhantha model is as observed. These verses can't be an interpolation since these verses are the basic essence of the revolution itself as is specified in the chapter 1 of SS. In other words, without these verses, one can't reach tropical from the Sun revolution specified there in chapter 1 and chapter 2.

We can also make out why direction "Eastwards" is specified in sloka 3.9 that disturbed Burgess. It's very simple. When VE point moves westwards in the precession, the starry sphere would definitely move eastwards. Only if one misinterprets the verse 3.9 as the ayana movement itself, one might get perplexed by the eastward direction.

The verse 3.9 just talks about an observable phenomenon of stars moving backwards in a yuga and that observable phenomenon would be Eastwards, just opposite to the westward movement of the VE point.

The verse 3.10 discusses the movement of solstice points as we have already discussed in the article "The ayana".

And the verses 3.11 and 3.12 guide us how the corrected Sun by applying the related verses would be observed on an equinox and a solstice day.

Why only at equinoxes or solstices?

This is a key question and the answer to this lies in verse 3.10 as explained in the article "The ayana". I want readers to think and hence would not provide the explanation straightway here just now.

Click the following link for the next article in this series:

Why the 27 degree concept is a misnomer?