Title: Reliability of climatic prediction of Hindu almanacs of Hindus in Sri Lanka

Biography:

N Piratheeparajah is a Senior Lecturer in Geography at University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. His research interests are Climate Change and Water Resources Management. He has completed his BA(Hons.) in Geography in 2006 and completed his MPhil in climatology in 2013. He has published two books and thirteen research articles in international and national indexed and refereed journals. He presented eleven research papers in international and national research conferences.  Piratheeparajah has written 121 articles in the local and national news papers to create the awareness about Climate change and Disaster management.

Abstract

There is a very marvelous system using by Tamils especially by Hindus in Sri Lanka, which is Almanac (Panchangam) for three thousand and five hundred years for their holy, ritual and personal purpose. There are two types of Panchangam one is called sentential almanac (Suththa Vaakkiya Panchangam) and other one is mathematical almanac (Thirukkanitha Panchangam). However this study is focusing the reliability of climatic prediction of sentential almanac compare with the real meteorological measurement. The main objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between the prediction of Panchangam and actual climate phenomena specially amount of received rainfall and rainy days. All climatic data were collected from Department of Meteorology and the collected data and the facts that are indicated in the almanac were analyzed using correlation method. Relationship between the Indicated marakkal amount (this is about total rainfall of a year) in the panchangam and the actual total rainfall amount is in a positive manner, which equals to 0.78. Thetkoddam (which is related to the change of angel of the sun) and Kandavanam (this is about the amount of solar radiation) are in same level for sixty years and the dates of beginning and end also same. Extreme weather events such as flood, cyclones, storm, severe thunderstorm and drought have been predicted in well   advance in very accuracy level in the almanac for hundred ten years. But there is a weak correlation in the break and retreat of North East Monsoon and South West Monsoon Winds. Four climatic phenomena’s out of five are in strong positive relations in the almanac measurement and actual measurement. Therefore, accurate interpretation is determine the reliability of Hindu almanacs and if it is correct interpretation the almanacs will be very useful weather forecasting system and will be used for the planning and development activities in all the sector especially for the agriculture sectors.