Sankranti: Detailed Perspectives by KRS Murthy
Sankranti: Detailed Perspectives by KRS Murthy Including etymological roots of the keywords and astronomical foundations. Sankranti only means crossing an important point by the earth in its elliptic orbit around the sun. There are 4 points all called Sankranti or sankramaNa. kramaNa in samskritam means orderly sequence or motion of an object. sam in sankramaNa qualifies with the expanded reference to samyak a samskritam word. On all the 4 sankramaNa days, the Brahmanas offer tarpaNa to their ancestors, not just the parents. In general brahmaNa and all following Sanatana dharma give away a variety of things to others in the society, called daana in samskritam. The word tarpaNa comes from the etymological seed root alphabet or Eka beejaakshara moola tRu, where the "Ru" in tRu refers to the 7th vowel or Svara Akshara Ru, NOT the ra that comes in the ya series after ya ...ra la va etc. In general, any crossing across a point is sankramaNa. In the sidereal calendar followed in...