Eclipse - What effect on New borns

MP mantri to test ancient eclipse myths

Sudhir K. Singh

Bhopal

July 18: Madhya Pradesh’s proactive school education minister, Ms Archana Chitnis, has taken a novel decision to keep a health watch on the children to be born during the solar eclipse on July 22 for the greater part of their lifetime. Efforts, she said, would be made to find out if such children showed any signs of abnormality, as often supposed. References to it exist in ancient Indian texts. The findings, if any, would contribute to the acute paucity of research on the subject.

State education department officials told this newspaper that it had often been observed that the overall constitution of some children born during an eclipse was weak even if they outwardly seemed in good health.

Asthma, polio, and eye problems were fairly common. Hence, there was ample scope for a deeper look, they said. The proposal was mooted at a special meeting presided over by Ms Chitnis comprising the V-C of Barkatullah University, MD of the Madhya Pradesh Council for Science and Technol-ogy, Sanskrit scholars, lea-ding astrologers and health officials. Participants felt it was time the issue was given the shape of a scientific inquiry rather then left to the realm of possibility fostered by ancient belief.

Both public and private hospitals, the officials informed, had been requested to furnish key data on the newborns. Quite apart from keeping a watch on their physical symptoms, it would also help in preparing their horoscopes. Solar eclipses, it was argued, have been cloaked in myth and superstition since time immemorial. Scientific accounts of their psychiatric and public health impacts are scarce. For instance, it is still widely believed that eclipses have spurred suicides though no proper probe or investigation has ever been conducted.

A turn of the millennium eclipse, said an official quoting an old article in the American Journal of Psychiatry, was the biggest media event in Austria in 1999. The curiosity was understandable since it was the second of its kind since 1842. The event had provoked extensive media coverage which began months before the occurrence. There was considerable fear and anticipation with the result that on eclipse day 40 per cent of the nation’s working population was on leave.

Just this evening I was discussing with my family the rituals we have during eclipses.
About 3 to 4 hours before and three to four hours after and eclipse, people are not supposed to take food.They also cannot perform Puja.
After the eclipse, people are supposed to have a bath before they can enter the kitchen or do puja.
People are also supposed to give alms to the poor during the eclipse to keep off the effect of evil forces Rahu and Ketu.
Do I believe in these?
No.
I am of the opinion that these rituals were initiated by the ancient brahmins so that they could keep the general populace under their thumbs so that they had to ask the brahmins before they did anything.
Their are many prevailing superstitions regarding the eclipses.
Mothers who conceive during eclipses or whose children are born during eclipse would be born with defects, is also one of them.
I am glad that the MP government is carrying out research on the children born during eclipses.
Research should also be done on those children who were conceived during eclipses, if the date could be fixed accurately.
These children should be compared with the general children to see if the percent of defective children increased owing to the effect of eclipses.
We should, once and for all, clear these misconceptions, if they are false and accept them and warn the populace of the evil effects if scientifically proved.