WHAT IS BODHAAYANA AMAAVASYA

BODHAYANA AMAVASYA Bodhayana is a sage who lived south to Vindhya mountains. Apasthamba rishi is the sishya of bodhayana. The vamsavali of this sage will follow bhodhayana smruthi. Amavasya tarpana for these vamsavali is being done on bodhayana amavasya day. In panchangams we can see that on certain amavasya days it is specifically marked as bodhayana amavasya. Do you know how this was started? When the kuruksheta war was confirmed between kauravas and pandavas, king suyodhana approached the Sahadeva, who is authority in the jyothisa sastra, to predict a day to start the war so that they can win the war. Accordingly, sahadeva predicted the amavasya day to start the war and suyodhana will be victorious. In those days, even if the enemy approaches for a question, they will not cheat them. Later pandavas came to know about this prediction and prayed to Lord Krishna about the situation. Lord krishna thought for a while and asked the pancha pandavas and others in their side to perform the amavasya tarpana on the chaturdasi day knowing well that those who starts war on that day have to face the death(chaturadasiyandu maranambu sambhavinchu a proverb in telugu. Having seen the performance of amavasya tarpana on chaturdasi day, sun could not understand the reason, and arrived to the kurukshetra with moon and requested the Lord krishna, why amavasya tarpana is being done on chaturdasi day. Lord krishna, without any hesitation told lord sun, that amavasya is the day when sun and moon conjoins and now both sun and moon are in one place so that the tarpana is being performed. They could not question any more and accepted the lord Krishna words. From that day the bodhayana amavasya was started, i.e. previous day to amavasya is bodhayana amavasya. Normally, amavasya is common to all sutra followers. we can see in the panchangam as sarva amavasya but for certain amavasyas this will happen previous day to bodhayana sutra followers. That is to be clear, on the amavasya thithi day before sun set if prathama/padyami thithi occurs, or on the following day of amavasya before sun set if dwiteeya starts on prathama/paadyami day, then the previous day to amavasya day is termed as bodhayana amavasya. Those following bodhayana smruthi has to perform amavasya tarpana on this day and others has to perform on amavasya day. nemalchery goda kannaiah