Critique of 3163BCE for Mahabharata war date

Critique of 3163BC date: 

Following are the list of major flaws in the year 3163BCE

1. Bhishma nirvana in Phalguna wrongly claimed as Magha: In the table 1, all the dates for full moon in the year 3163BCE and 3162BCE are listed. The month assigned by the author is listed along with the actual position of the full moon. It clearly matches till the month of Pushya Dec 8 3163BCE. The author then wrongly introduces an Adhika masa to claim full moon at Magha as Pushya to fit his date of Bhishma nirvana Jan 29 3163BCE in the Magha month. This error propagates to the rest of the months. Chaitra month is wrongly declared as Phalguna, Vaishaka is wrongly declared as Chaitra and so on. Figures 1 to 3 are the sky maps of the full moon days in 3163BCE highlighting the error.

Table 1: Mislabeling Magha month as Adhika Pushya

Figure 4 and 5 show that the year 3163BCE had adhika masa in Bhadrapada with a full moon at Purva Bhadra and Uttara Bhadra on July 14 and Aug 12 respectively. It seems the author is introducing two adhika masa in the year 3163 (one in Bhadrapada and one in Pushya) to fit his date of Bhishma nirvana at Magha. This would not be permissible. If either Bhadrapada adhika masa is picked or Pushya adhika masa is picked Bhishma nirvana will fall in the month of Phalguna and not in Magha.

     Figure 1: Full moon Jan 7 3162BCE in Magha is wrongly declared as Pushya Figure 2: Full moon Feb6 3162BCE in U Phalguni is wrongly declared as Magha

Figure 3: Full moon Mar 7 3162BCE in Chitra is wrongly declared as Phaluguna month

Figure 4 and 5: Full moon Aug 12 and July 14 at U Bhadra and P Bhadra.

2. Sri Balarama’s pilgrimage: The date 3163BCE does not accommodate the evidence from Sri Balarama’s pilgrimage. The author inverts the evidence and suggests Sri Balarama left in Shravana and arrived to witness Gadha yudha in Pushya. This puts the date of Sri Balarama’s pilgrimage at October 1 3163BCE. This contradicts the author’s date of October 8 as the date when Sri Krishna left for a peace mission to Hastinapura. Sri Balarama could not have left for pilgrimage even before the peace mission started,

3. Krishna Paksha on Day 13 of war: In 3163BCE the day 13 of war falls in Shukla paksha this contradicts the evidence in verse 7-187-1/2. It clearly states that sun rose when moon was still in the sky implying Krishna Paksha

त्रिभागमात्रेषायां रात्र्यां युद्धमवर्तत।कुरूणां पाण्डवानां च संहृष्टानां विशाम्पते॥ 7-187-1

अथ चन्द्रप्रभां मुष्णन्नादित्यस्य पुरःसरः। अरुणोऽभ्युदयाञ्चक्रे ताम्रीकृर्वन्निवाम्बरम्॥ 7-187-2