Time is something that always moves on. It is subjective and relative to people. When we do something, we like we feel time flies fast, meanwhile when we dislike whatever we are doing we feel time hardly move. Although it moves constantly, we feel it moves fast when we do something we like and slow when we do something we dislike. As per dictionary definition time is “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole”. In this article I’m going to do is to show you’ll the thing we grew up seeing, understanding and planning our schedules with: A CLOCK.

What is the first thing that strikes us when we hear time?? We remember a Room clock, or a wrist watch or if you are like me it’d be looking at your phone to check what time of the day it is. And what does a clock look like??

If you were born on or before the early 2000s you would have grown up seeing the Analog clock or a Regular Wrist watch. Slowly as time passed new technologies came and the world slowly started to accept digitization. But whatever the technology, the International System of Units (S.I.) of time remained the same i.e. 1 day= 24 hours, 1 hour= 60 minutes and 1 Minute = 60 seconds.

When we learnt in school, we always used to dread 8:30 a.m. as it was the time when our schools started and wished to see 3 p.m./3:30p.m. arrive soon as we all wanted to come running home. In our text books there were chapters on clock and time and it thought us about the current clock. But did you ever think about the origin of calculations of time?? Did we question how the day got divided into 24 hours and how each hour being broken up into smaller units namely minutes and seconds?? We heard growing up that historically in certain parts of the world timekeeping was done through hourglass and water clock and few other parts of the world observed the movement of the sun and the moon to determine the time. I’ve also heard senior members in the society saying that some households had a unique house structure which had a pond at the center. The pond didn’t have any roofing above it and it was surrounded by a box shaped house structure where people lived. People in such houses used to see the reflection of the sun in the pond to determine time.  If you grew up in a traditional family you would have seen your parents and grandparents referring to the Panchaang (i.e. Almanac) to determine on which day a Hindu festival comes on or during which day Auspicious (E.g. Shubh Muhurath) or Inauspicious (E.g. Rahu Kaal) time is at. If you spend some time reading the same you will notice few words like Ghati.

If we use Wikipedia, we get to know all kinds of things but they seem to miss out 1 important timekeeping method. I would thus like to introduce to you the Vedic system of timekeeping.

Firstly we would need to look at the terminologies and calculations necessary to arrive at a day below

Terminologies

As mentioned above 1 Day consists of 60 Ghatis. In Vedic timekeeping 1 day starts with sunrise on day 1 and end with sunrise on day 2

Vedic Time keeping under Ghati System.

This clock can be seen being used in “Hindu calendar app” where the developers invested a good amount of time trying to recreate a “Vedic clock”. It follows a 60 Ghati format (instead of 24 hours). One day in the is clock is made by dividing the total day into 60 parts directly. Again 1 day in Vedic timekeeping is sunrise of Day 1 to Sunrise of Day 2. The Vedic clock is starts at 00:00:00 (sunrise) and the Day end at 59:59:59. Since day ranges from 00- 60 Ghatis, 30^th Ghati (30:00:00) will be approximately the evening time of half day.

Figure3 : Clock using Ghati, Pal & Vipal (Source: Hindu Calendar App)

The above image was taken on 27^th April 2024 at 11:37 A.M, in Mangalore, Karnataka.

The Day length > Night length as the image above was taken in the month of April 2024, and the earth is approaching Summer Solstice (Uttarayana). If we were to see the time in the month of December then: Night length > Day length. Every day from 21^st December until 21^st June the sunrise time keeps going backwards in the British clock.

If I were to explain the same thing in the British Clock then Sunrise was at 6:15:08 A.M. (00.00.00) and Sunset was at 6:41:02 P.M (31.5 Ghati approx.). The Day ended at 6:14:40 A.M of the next day (28^th April). I have used the Jagannath Hora astrology software to determine the precise time of sunrise and sunset as per the British clock.

Now there arises a point of concern. If a day starts on 6:15:08 A.M. and next sunrise (28^th April) 6:14:40 A.M of the next day there is no issues with the British clocks of today as it follows fixed 24 hours format. But in the case of Vedic clock since sunrise happens at sunrise 00:00:00 (i.e. 6:15:08 A.M. of 27^th April) and day has to end at 59:59:59 (i.e. 6:14:40 A.M of 28^th April) the question arises as to what happens to the reduced seconds i.e 6:15:08 – 6:14:40 = 28 seconds short.

So the answer to this question is that the day (6:15:08 to 6:14:40) is divided into 60 parts. So the reduction of 28 seconds will be distributed in the total. So thus we can see here that this system is very fluid and considers to increasing or decreasing sunrise times between 2 days.

The Vikramaditya Vedic Clock

So now that we’ve spoken about the British and the Vedic Clock, it’s time to bring to your knowledge the Vikramaditya Vedic Clock. So what does it look like?

Figure 4 : Vikramaditya Vedic Clock, Ujjain

You maybe wondering what this clock is about. The clock was invented by Aaroh Shrivastava and created by Maharaja Vikramaditya Shodh Peeth and Ujjain Municipal Corporation.  It was built at a cost of 1.7 crore and is mounted on an 85-foot tower within Jantar Mantar in Ujjain, adjacent to the Government Jiwaji Observatory.

This clock was inaugurated on 29^th February 2024 by the Prime Minister of Bharat (India) Narendra Modi in the Holy City of Ujjain.  

In this clock the following units are used for calculating time:

Now if we look closely at what’s already mentioned earlier in the terminology and its composition chart its clearly says                                                          1 day = 30 Muhurthas = 60 Ghatis

Well well well, looks like the Government of Bharat is endorsing a clocking system based Muhurthas as the base.

Another point to consider is

This clock functions on the basis of our past Muhurat working but also incorporates the seconds and minutes into the same. So it’s a blend of the past and the present.

Now the point to remember here is it was unveiled at Ujjain. Why Ujjain?? Why not Delhi or Varanasi?? To understand the same we need to know its history.

About the Holy City: Ujjain

When time is mentioned Ujjain always comes to the picture. Ujjain is an ancient city besides the Kshipra River in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Ujjain is approximately 200 kilometeres west of the city Bhopal (state capital). Ujjain is described as the best city in Adi Brahma Puran and is called mokshda and bhukti-mukti in AgniPuran and Garuda Puran.

This city has a glorious history. As per religious books this city has never seen destruction for the god of destruction Mahakal himself resides here. As per Garuda Puran there seven cities that can provide salvation and out of them Avantika city is considered the best as the importance of Ujjain is little bit more than other cities.

Importance of this City

• This city has one of 12 Jyotirlings i.e., the Mahakaleshwar Temple  
• It is one out of seven salvation providing cities,
• Gadhkalika and Harsiddhi, the two Shakti Peets, are in this city
• Its 1 of the 4 cities where the Sacred Kumbh takes place.
• The cave of king Bhartari is found here

Figure5 : Mahakaleshwar Temple, Ujjain

Figure6 : Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga, Ujjain

“It is believed that Ujjain has foot prints of God Vishnu. God Rama himself performed his father’s last rites after his death at Ujjain and therefore the place where the ritual took place called ‘RamGhat’. The ‘Shahi Bath’of Simhasta takes place on this RamGhat. Great Scholars of varied fields like Kaalidas, Varahmihir, Banabhatta, Rajashekera, Pushpadanta, Shankaracharya, Vallabhacharya, Bhartahari, Diwakar, Kattayayan and Bhas had their association with Ujjain. Mughal emperor Akbar made this city his regional capital. For centuries, Ujjain has been a center of religion for Hindu, Jain and Buddha religion.”  [Source: https://ujjain.nic.in/en/culture-heritage/]

Ujjain Mean Time- The Prime Meridian of the world

A prime meridian is an arbitrarily-chosen meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. It is considered as the base for computation of time. We have always seen when using world clock app in our smartphones that the time of our country would follow by GMT + 1, GMT +5:30. If you were curious about this GMT, it stands for Greenwich Mean Time. The current Prime Meridian is IERS Reference Meridian and it slightly differs from Greenwich meridian. Previous to this for a long time Greenwich meridian was used. It passes through the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, in London, England. From 1884 to 1974, the Greenwich meridian was the international standard prime meridian, used worldwide for timekeeping and navigation. Before Greenwich many European countries claimed that Prime meridian passes through their country and they should be classified as the center of time computation. Well their passion for world hegemony constantly made them copy the idea of another country and showcase it as their own after modifying a few words and concepts to suit their interests. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work against Bharat as they fail to provide reasons for many gaps in their research.

But long before they even started to claim so, our ancestors of ancient Bharat used to use Ujjain Time for computation of time for Panchaang and all related daily activities.

The fact has been confirmed by number of astronomers like Lalla, Vatesvara, Bhaskara (I & II), Sripathi etc.

Bhaskara I is credited for the compositions of two astronomical treatises par excellence, “Maha-Bhaskariya” and “Laghu-Bhaskariya”. In both these works, he has mentioned the places along the ancient Hindu Prime meridian.

Bhaskara I in his later work “Laghu-Bhaskariya” mentions only five locations.

लङ्कावात्स्यपुरावन्तीस्थानेश्वरसुरालयान् ।

अवगाह्य स्थिता रेखा देशान्तरविधायिनी ।।१.२३।।

(23) “The line which passes through Lankā, Vātsyapura, Avantī, Sthāneśvara, and “The abode of the gods” is the prime meridian”

Among the five locations mentioned, four of them are already known to us:

1. Suraalaya or abode of gods i.e., the North pole.

2. Sthanesa or present day Thaneshwar, near Kurukshetra.

3. Avanti or present-day Ujjain.

4. Lanka at 0° latitude & 0° longitude.

Figure7 : Prime Meridian as per Laghu-Bhaskariya

As per Surya Siddhanta (4th-century astronomical treatise), Ujjain is at the intersection of the zero meridian of longitude and the Tropic of Cancer.

Figure8 : Ujjain vs Greenwich

Here in this picture we can clearly see how Tropic of cancer passes through Ujjain and not Greenwich.

All these points here suggest a story which is contrary to the already established story stitched by the international governments (England and USA to be precise).  Whatever may be stitched the fact remains that it is stitched and not made. It is Mahakaleshwar who made time. The name in itself is self-explanatory.

Mahakaleshwar refers to Maha (Great) + Kal (Time) + Eshwar (God)

Meaning: The God which presides over all of time. So, it is natural to understand that he is the one who controls time. He controls the beginning and he controls the end. It is for this reason that the city of Avanti (Ujjain) had a very special significance in the planet.

With this article I hope I was able to give an idea about our historical forms of timekeeping. It is very important to know about our history. Just as Goethe said “A country that doesn’t know its past, has no future” similarly if we do not know about our roots, we can be easily misled into following what others say is true. A tree without strong roots is bound to fall and humans without sense of identity of themselves are bound to be in darkness. Despite the nation going through 800 years of colonization the fact that people still use Ujjain as a base for time computation and panchaang definitely means it is not only a city of relevance today but also has the potential for changing the future time-keeping back to where it rightfully belongs. It is time that decides things and it its MAHAKAL who decides what time it should be!! And right now, it appears that he wants past knowledge to come back and decolonization to be fast tracked. Expect much more decolonization happening in the next 10 years.