Sri Parthasarathi Brahmothsavam ~ Chandra Prabhai 2019

The Sun, at the heart of our solar system, is a yellow dwarf star, a hot ball of glowing gases. Its gravity holds the solar system together, keeping everything from the biggest planets to the smallest particles of debris in its orbit.  In what is being considered a particularly rare event, scientists are projecting that the Sun will be an unusually cool customer by the year 2050.  On the morning of 22.4.2019, it was Surya Prabhai ~ being day 4 of Brahmothsavam, in the evening it was the real cool Chandra Prabhai that of moon. 

சந்திரன் குளிர்ச்சியானவன்; சந்திரனுக்கு நிலா, அம்புலி, வெண்மதி,   என பெயர்கள் உண்டு. முழுமதி மிகவும் சந்தோஷத்தை தர வல்லது.  நிலவை  நோக்கி  கைநீட்டி,தன் குழந்தையுடன் விளையாட வருமாறு அம்புலியை அழைக்கும் பருவம் - அம்புலிப்பருவம். புவியிலிருந்து மிகத் தெளிவாகத் தெரிவதாலும் முறைதவறா பிறை சுழற்சியாலும் தொன்மைக்காலத்திலிருந்தே மனித  சமுகத்தின் பண்பாட்டுக் கூறுகளில்,   குளிர்ச்சியான சந்திரன்  மிகுந்த தாக்கமேற்படுத்தி உள்ளது. பூமியின் ஈர்ப்புச் சக்தி காரணமாக, பூமியைச் சந்திரன் சுற்றிவருகிறது. மனிதன் உயரே அனுப்பியுள்ள எண்ணற்ற செயற்கைக்கோள்களும் இதே காரணத்தால் பூமியைச் சுற்றிவருகின்றன. பூமியைச் சந்திரன் சுற்றுவதுபோலவே வியாழன் கிரகத்தை 64  சந்திரன்கள் சுற்றிவருகின்றன.

நிலாவையும் வானத்து மீனையும் காற்றையும் நேர்பட வைத்தாங்கே : பாரதியார் வரிகள். பெரியாழ்வார் கண்ணனை வளர்க்கும் பருவத்தில், தனது 'பெரியாழ்வார் திருமொழியில் 'பத்து பாடல்களில், சந்திரனை வளரும் அழகு கண்ணனுடன்’ விளையாட அழைக்கிறார். மேகத்தில் மறையாமல் விளையாட வரச் சொல்லி  "மஞ்சில் மறையாதே மாமதீ மகிழ்ந்தோடி வா" என்கிறார்.  திருவல்லிக்கேணி பிரம்மோத்சவத்தில் ரத சப்தமியான இன்று  காலை பெருமாள் சூர்யப்பிரபையில் புறப்பாடு  கண்டருளினார். மாலை, குளிர்ச்சியான வெள்ளி நிறமுடைய சந்திரப் பிரபையில் புறப்பாடு கண்டு அருளினார்.

The Moon (or Luna) is the Earth’s only natural satellite – considered to have been formed 4.6 billion years ago around some 30–50 million years after the formation of the solar system. The Moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth meaning the same side is always facing the Earth.  In reality both sides of the Moon see the same amount of sunlight however only one face of the Moon is ever seen from Earth. This is because the Moon rotates around on its own axis in exactly the same time it takes to orbit the Earth, meaning the same side is always facing the Earth.

Moon has enamoured mankind for ages – in our literature and in Divyaprabhandnam too, there is mention of moon in many a places.  Moon is characterised as a cool, pleasant one.  On day 4 of Brahmothsavam – in the evening Sri Parthasarathi Perumal had  purappadu in cool Chandra prabhai.  Here is something interesting about the moon too. 

It is not a new insight; Galileo realised that nights on the nearside of the moon would be earthlit, just as earthly nights are moonlit. All early lunar fiction draws the reader’s attention to Earth waxing and waning in the alien sky as the clearest possible indication of the revolutionary Copernican insight. Twentieth-century heirs made a similar use of the image of worlds reversed. Earthlight (1955), Clarke’s first moon-set novel, opens with the accountant Bertram Sadler, new to the moon, looking out of his train window at the “cold glory of this ancient, empty land” illuminated by “a light tinged with blues and greens; an arctic radiance that gave no atom of heat. And that, thought Sadler, was surely a paradox, for it came from a world of light and warmth.”

Fifty years  after the first moon landings, a new generation of space travellers, from Xi Jinping’s taikonauts to Jeff Bezos, are racing to colonise our nearest neighbour.  The moon is rising again above the horizon of the imagination, waxing into worldly relevance. On 1969  Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first stepped on to what Aldrin called the “magnificent desolation” of the Sea of Tranquility, the possibility of a human return to their dusty stamping ground is greater than it has been at any time since the Apollo programme reached its end just three years later.  The robot vanguard has already set forth. Later this year India will attempt to become the fourth nation to land a probe on the moon; an Israeli attempt to get there failed in April, but its backers plan to try again. China has landed two robot rovers on the moon’s surface in the past five years. One visited the near side, the familiar pockmarked face seen from Earth; the other went to the overflown-but-never-before-visited far side. The Chinese space agency has talked of sending humans in their wake, perhaps in the early 2030s.

They may be beaten to it. Last year Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese fashion entrepreneur and art collector, signed a contract with SpaceX, the rocket firm founded by Elon Musk, for a flight around the moon. He intends to take a crew of as-yet-unspecified artists with him. The chances of this happening in 2023, as notionally planned, are small; SpaceX has yet to fly any humans anywhere. The chances of it happening sometime, though, are at least middling; for the most part, SpaceX has eventually delivered on its promises. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos is spending some of the riches he has accrued as boss of Amazon on Blue Origin, a space company that aims to surpass SpaceX. Earlier this month he unveiled Blue Moon, a lander designed to place scientific equipment on to the lunar surface. After it has been upgraded, he says, it will be capable of landing people there, too.  So the war for space, rather moon seems to be hotting up .. ..

Here are some photos of the pleasant Chandra Prabhai purappadu at Thiruvallikkeni divyadesam. 

~ adiyen Srinivasadhasan

22^nd Apr 2019