According to this, the period of precession is 36000 years. Taking the Saptarishis to mean summer solstice and rishi as the Moon as given in Yajur Jyotisha and Nakshtara as that of the Moon, or a day, one can infer that the summer solstice shifted by 1 day or 1° in a century. The solsticial colure is the great circle joining the North Pole, South Pole and the two solsticial points. According to Bernard, Saptarishis represented the solsticial colure. In fact the motion of Saptarishis as described by Varahamihira in Brihat Samhita is a riddle. Abhyankar suggests that it was Vriddha Garga who discovered precession in about 500 B.C. The phenomenon of precession of equinoxes was known in India much before Varahamihira as there is a clear evidence for that. It works out to about 1720 years when the astronomers who flourished at that time found the solsticial points by experimentation. If we agree that the two Zodiacs coincided at Varahamihira’s time, the First Point of Aries was at 24° of Meshadi at the time referred to. At the time of Varahamihira they were respectively at 1° Cancer and Capricorn. This means that 24° of Cancer was the southern solsticial point and 24° of Capricorn was the north solsticial point. This has been mentioned in the early works. Years ago the dakshinayana was in the middle of Aslesha and uttarayana was in the middle of Dhanista.
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