Clearing the

In the epic Ramayana, Sage Valmiki mentioned that when Lord Rama was born, the sun was located in Aries, Saturn was in Libra, Jupiter and the moon were in Cancer, Venus was seen in Pisces while Mars was located in Capricorn. Moreover, it was the ninth day of the increasing phase of the moon in the lunar month of Chaitra. These unique astral conditions were present in the sky on 10 January 5114 BC writes Pushkar Bhatnagar in his book Dating the Era of Lord Rama.

As an author of Ramayana in spoken colloquial Telugu sourcing from the great poet Vavilikolanu Subba Rau’s Andhra Valmiki Ramayana, I evinced keen interest in knowing the birth date of Lord Rama. The findings of Pushkar Bhatnagar enthused me and the result is this write-up. This is an excerpt from his investigative, exploratory and analytical findings.

The story of Sri Ram’s life was first narrated by Maharishi (Sage) Valmiki in the Ramayana. Valmiki was a great astronomer as he has made sequential astronomical references on important dates related to the life of Sri Ram indicating the location of planets vis-a-vis zodiac constellations and the other stars (nakshatras). Pushkar Bhatnagar, in the course of his employment at the Indian Revenue Service, had acquired a unique software known as ‘Planetarium’ from the USA. He entered the relevant details about the planetary positions narrated by Maharishi Valmiki and obtained very interesting and convincing results, which determined the important dates starting from the birth of Sri Ram to the date of his coming back to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile.