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OCTOBER, 1985
total covering of the moonlight or the sunlight by the Rahu from all sides. Besides, they explain that a lunar eclipse can occur at full Moon (purnima) and a solar eclipse only at new Moon (amāvāsya).15
It may be suggested from all these figurative explanations of the causes of eclipses-partial and total, shorn of all their embellishments that since the Earth is opaque and is illuminated by the Moon and the Sun with their light, according to the Jaina Astronomy, there appears to be an interception of the light of a luminous body by the intervention of another body between it and the eye or between the luminous body and what illuminates it, which causes eclipses. The Jaina view on the causes of eclipses may be considered in the light of the views of other Indian schools of astronomy on this problem.
Aryabhata defines the eclipses of the Moon and Sun in clear terms that at the time of the solar eclipse the Moon covers the sun and at the time of the lunar eclipse the shadow of the Earth covers the Moon.16 Consequently, there occur the solar and lunar eclipses respectively. The commentary on Aryabhatiya by Paramesvara emphatically says that the Rahu does not cover the Sun and the Moon at all.17
In the Süryasiddhanta, it is explained in the same way that like a piece of cloud the Moon, coming below the Sun, covers the Sun and advancing further, it passes into the shadow of the Earth18 which is situated at a distance of the sixth rāśi from the Sun, 19 thus there occur the solar and lunar eclipses respectively.
15 Brhat Samgrahani, Candrasuri, ed. by Yasovijayaji, p. 152.
paurnamasyam va yathakramain candrasya suryasya va uparagam karoti sa parvarahuh,
Comm. Suriyapannatti, 20. 16 candro jalamarko agniramrdbhuschayapi ya tamastaddhi I chadayati sasi suryam
sasinam mahati ca bhucchaya II, Aryabhatiya, Golapada, v. 37, ed. by Dr. H. Keren, published by E. J. Brill, Leiden,
1874. 17 suryam grahanakale sasi chadayat natu rahuh I sasinam grahanakale mahati bhucc
haya natu rahuh II,
Ibid., comm. on v. 37. 18 chadako bhaskarasyenduradhahstho ghanavad-bhavet i bhucchayam prangmukha
scandre visatyasya bhavedasau II 9 II, Suryasiddhanta, ch. 4, 9, p. 100, edited by Baladevaprasad Misra, published by
Gangavisnu Srikrsnadasa, Kalyan, Bombay. VS. 1980. 19 bhanorbhardhe mahicchaya 1,
Ibid. 4. 6.
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