There are so many astronomical evidences given in Ramayana and Mahabharata. It is said that there are about 500+ in Ramayana and 200+ in Mahabharata.
I wonder,
What calendar they followed
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1There were/are solar and lunar calendars... hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/35796/12304 Shaka and Vikrama are names after some king/event and amanta, purnamanta also variants only but actually at the end they r lunar calendar only.. – YDS Sep 11 at 15:54
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Thithi, nakshatra, muhurta, samvatsara, paksha, were prominently used in EPICs. Vaara (week day) is subsequent development, may be after Gregarion calendar known to our ancestors. The division of TIME is different in different ages. Calendar system is relatively new concept – Srimannarayana K V Sep 12 at 16:08
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1Your 2nd question on Vikram samvatsar is a separate topic altogether. Please delete the Vikram samvatsar question from this question and ask a separate question. Besides, the topic Vikram samvatsar is a controversial subject. I do not know whether anyone can answer it with confidence.@UbiBhatt – Srimannarayana K V Sep 23 at 11:22
In Ramayan, greater chances are that they followed lunar calendar.
One of the issues with Ramayan is that why Dashahra and Deepavali are celebrated in autumn when Ram ji left for 14 year exile on his birthday which comes in spring. According to solar calendar this is obviously wrong.
One of the explanations of this prevalent practice, as made by author Saroj Bala in book "Ramayan retold with scientific evidences" in "Box 6.3" (https://books.google.com/books/about/Ramayan_Retold_With_Scientific_Evidences.html?id=vReKDwAAQBAJ) is that they may have followed Lunar calendar. Lunar calendar misses solar calendar by a month in about 32-33 months. In 14 years, we'd have missed about 5 months, which roughly matches the discrepancy. (Btw, author doesn't claim the type of calendar is mentioned explicitly in Ramayana. She says ancients followed the practice of adhik maas to continue with lunar solar calendar like today, but somewhere in between someone ignored the adhik maas and moved celebrations to 5 months earlier).
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Please flag your answer post and choose "in need of moderator intervention" option and mention that you have provided sources for your answer, so please remove citation banner. – TheLittleNaruto Sep 24 at 5:35
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No problem! I see you have joined this site recently; while you're exploring the site. You may want to join chatroom for general discussion on Hinduism: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/15189/hinduism :) – TheLittleNaruto Sep 25 at 6:26
