Vedic Clocks Tracking Ancient 'Kaal Ganana' To Be Installed At Major Indian Shrines

Bhopal: Vedic Clocks, representing the unique union of tradition and tech attesting to time calculation going back to the earliest times, are going to be installed at landmark sites and important Hindu shrines across the country in the near future.

A project to revive the ancient Indian system of ‘Kaal Ganana’ (time reckoning) through the unique concept of Vedic Clock has been launched by the Ujjain-based Vikramaditya Research Chair.

“The institute has designed the Vedic Clock, the first clock that keeps traditional Indian time, after doing a lot of studies to integrate the Indian ancient system of time calculation with modern technology”, Sriram Tiwari, director of the institute and cultural advisor to chief minister Mohan Yadav told this newspaper on Friday.

Three Vedic Clocks, christened as ‘Vikramaditya Ghadi’, have been installed each one at Ujjain, in front of Mr. Yadav’s official bungalow at Shyamla Hills here and Kashi- Vishwanath Corridor in Uttar Pradesh recently.

The Vedic Clock was first installed in the holy city of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, and was virtually dedicated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 29, 2024.

“We are planning to install the Vedic Clocks in all the Jyotirlingas in the country in the first phase of the project. Installation of the Vedic Clock in Kashi-Vishwanath Corridor is part of the plan”, Mr. Tiwari said.

There is a plan to popularize the Vedic Clocks in the foreign countries also, he added.

An App on Vedic Clock has been developed in around 200 Indian and foreign languages including Hebrew to popularize it in the foreign countries, according to Mr. Tiwari.

The clock, billed as the first of its kind in the world, calculates and displays time digitally based on the traditional ‘Vedic Panchang (Hindu calendar)’, as opposed to the standard 24-hour Gregorian system.

Theme of the clock is based on the Vedic concept of time-keeping in which a day starts at sunrise, not at midnight, and closes on the next sunrise.

It divides the day into 30 ‘muhurtas’, each lasting approximately 48 minutes.

The clock begins at 0:00 at sunrise, with sunset typically occurring around the 15th ‘muhurta’.

The clock also exhibits key ‘panchang’ elements such as ‘tithi’ (lunar day), and ‘nakshatra’ (constellation).

It provides information on festivals, eclipses, and astrological calculations.

It simultaneously displays Indian Standard Time (IST) and the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).