Why are all the major Shiva temples in India almost in a perfect straight line?
Yes, many ancient Lord Siva temples from Kedarnath till Rameswaram are aligned in a geographic straight line around 79° E 41'54” Longitude. This is geographic mystery for many till date since these temples were built during a time when there was no GPS(satellite and technology) and also instruments that could measure the exact longitude and latitude. If this is a fact, then how did this happen and how did this ancient Indian civilization constructed temples in such a prefect straight line?
Here is secret behind this sacred mystery:
79th meridian east ((79th meridian east — Wikipedia) is ancient Madyarekha of India based on Sumeru alignment towards North Pole star that are primarily used for Hindu temple construction.
https://ancientstarmyths.blogspot.com
VārāhaMihira who was the most famous Indian astronomer from ancient times identified North Pole as the location of Holy Meru in his work Pancha-Siddhāntikā and same goes with the ancient Hindu astronomical text known as the Suryasiddhanta, locates Meru as the ‘Navel of the Earth’.
Reference: Madhyarekha, Madhyarekhā, Madhya-rekha: 2 definitions
Below is mention of Madhyarekha by Bhaskara and why it is sacred to align to Meru.
As per current local Hindu cosmogony, SUMERU PARBAT(6351m) is present Kedārnāth mountain in the Garhwal district of Uttaranchal, India and below is Shiva Temples and Lingam alignment to Holy Sumeru. Constructing Shiva temples or Vishnu Temples along the Madhyamrekha have mythological significance. Ancient Purnanas explains the significance and origin of Lingam along this Meridian.
Below are most ancient Shiva temples in India that are perfectly aligned in straight line — 79° Meridian East
- · Kedarnath — 79.066900° E
- · Kalpeshwar — 79.449108° E
- · Rudranath — 79.318445° E
- · Madhya Maheshwar — 79.221632° E
- · Baijnath Dham — 79.615734° E
- · Kaleshwaram, Telangana — 79.904528° E
- · Mallikarjun Jyotirling, AP — 78.868031° E
- · Kalahasti, AP — 79.698279° E
- · Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu — 79.696243° E
- · Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu — 79.066688° E
- · Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu — 79.693521° E
- · Thiruvanakoil, Tamil Nadu — 78.705673° E
- · Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu — 79.317787° E
Why Sumeru is sacred?
Almost all of ancient civilization located circumpolar constellations such as Draco/Shishumara and Cygnus around pole star of Northern night sky as Heaven.These circumpolar constellations never seem to set and they simply rotate around the pole star that basically supported concept of Heaven/God for people of ancient civilizations. It appeared for them as these circumpolar constellations was controlling the movement of all stars and planets around it . In Egyptian terminology, they are referred as “Indestructibles”, a perfect destination for the soul of the dead king”. Egyptian pyramids are precisely orientated to North pole star (Thuban during 2800 till 2000 BCE).
In Hindu mythology, these circumpolar constellations are referred as Shisumara planetary system and other stars are also fixed on different sides of the Śhiśumāra planetary system according to the calculations of ancient Vedic astronomers.Even in current world and to concentrate their minds, Vedic sages worship the Śhiśumāra planetary system, which is technically known as the Kuṇḍalini-cakra.
https://ancientstarmyths.blogspot.com
Unlike Hindu cosmology, even Jain and Buddhist scriptures mention the Mount Meru model as shown above, but Dhruvaloka is particularly not mentioned. In Norse mythology, they talk about a World Tree that connects Heaven, Earth and Hell just like Meru. For Egyptians, Meru was something like Pyramid that supported God re-birth Myth as the Egyptians believed that the unmovable area the stars circled was heaven, the pyramids were built to align north with a single, perfectly aligned vent.
Greeks referred the location of union from earth to Heaven(circumpolar constellation) with structure of omphalos(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos) , “the navel” of the earth and they localized Omphalos(Stone of Delphi) as the central point from which terrestrial life originated in ancient Greek temples of Delphi and for Hinduism, it is referred as Linga(Union between Purusha and Prakrati) or Parashiva and Parashakti.
Below is similarities in Milk offering in ancient Greek and Hindu religious rituals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_mundi
Further, in Hindu rituals, the symbol with arms pointing clockwise (卐) is called swastika. If you try to locate the ancient Ramayana verse on ‘Dhruvam sarve Pradakshinam’ it refers Dhruvam as the pole star and these seven sages(Saptarishis) (Big Dipper) offer Pradakshinam. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit root swasti, which is composed of –
Su (सु) — good, well, auspicious
Asti (अस्ति) — to be or there is
Most of Hindu rituals in which devotees doing pradaskshina around God, pradaskhina in temples, holy hills, pradakshina around Agni God(Fire) during Hindu marriage rituals have been associated with this cosmology.
Circumambulation is the act of moving around a sacred object or idol.
Circumambulation of temples or deity images is an integral part of Hindu and Buddhist devotional practice (known in Sanskrit as pradakśiṇā). It is also present in other religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumambulation
Even Vibhuti Pada, the third chapter of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras mention the importance of mediating on the pole star.
ध्रुवे तद्गतिज्ञानम् ॥२८॥
dhruve tadgati-jñānam ॥28॥
Explanation : Meditating on the polestar(Dhruva) engenders knowledge (jnana) ||28||
Many famous Buddhist and as well as Hindu temples have been built as symbolic representations of this mountain and several myths have been associated with this holy mountain. If we refer Hindu Puranas in particular, it describes that Gods reside at north direction.
Please also note that most of Hindu temples are Meru model — The famous Brihadeeswara Temple of Tamil Nadu is referred as “Dakshina Meru” — the Meru Mountain of the South is good example. Every Hindu temple is built on a cosmic plan and the roof tower crowning the shrine refers to Kalasha (The Purna-Kalasha is considered a symbol of abundance and “source of life” in the Vedas) and temple Shikara represents Meru which reaches the ground and extends into the heavens pointing towards the world axis and same goes with Lingam that were specifically constructed to this cosmogony. It is sacred alignment towards North Pole star(Kundalini Cakra), hence they are constructed in straight line.
Please note that GPS was not available those times, hence Hindu astronomers have used ancient Sun Dial to locate Pole star something like shown below and you find them in Ved Shala in Ujjain.
The upper planes of the two walls on the sides of the steps in the middle of the instrument are parallel to the axis of the earth. In the direction of the the planes the pole star is visible that were primarily used to align to perfect North Star(Heaven). Normally these measurements were done during Akshaya Tritiya when Sun is exactly overhead which will help to get accurate measurement of right angle.
The Surya Siddhanta is a ancient Indian text on astronomy and time keeping, an idea that appears much earlier as the field of Jyotisha (Vedanga) of the Vedic period. The text is known for some of earliest known discussion of sexagesimal fractions and trigonometric functions. It uses sine (jya), cosine (kojya or “perpendicular sine”) and inverse sine (otkram jya) and also contains the earliest use of the tangent and secant when discussing the shadow cast by a mid day sun with Vedic Sundial.
In similar way, you can locate all the ancient Sun temples in Tropic of Cancer (ancient Karkrekha) like Sun temples of Orissa, Ujjain, Egypt, Ankor Wat till Mexico. All these ancient structures are perfectly aligned to North Star and these locations supported in birth of several religions. The day of Akshaya Tritiya (Vernal Equinox) or when Sun is exactly over head is auspicious in every religion and you find the scientific reason based on astronomy of past along with earth’s axial precession which ancient astronomers were expert.
Reference : https://ancientstarmyths.blogspot.com/
