The Thai Traditional Medicine Ephemeris

Main Article Content

Vadhana Jayathavaj

Abstract

The ephemeris in Thai Traditional Medicine (TTM) expresses in the time periods of the day (3 or 4 periods for day time and night time), days of the week (1-7 Sunday to Saturday), moon phase (the day of waning or waxing), months like in Thai lunar calendar (1,2,..., 12 or aye, yi,..., twelve), seasons of the year (in 3 seasons, 4 seasons, and 6 seasons), the calendar in TTM has their own unique characters. After evaluated official TTM text books, the TTM calendar is different from the Thai lunar calendar especially in dividing sub-seasons of a year. Determined by the Samuthanvinijjaya scriptor, each sub-season has an equal length of time in the year and explained each sub-season with the waning waxing phase of the moon which seems like the terminology in Thai lunar calendar (without mention about the second 8 lunar month). This makes misunderstanding that the TTM calendar is the same as the Thai lunar calendar. The TTM ephemeris using the Sun path around the Earth (geocentric) in one year determines the sub-seasons by equally division for 3 seasons, 4 seasons, and 6 seasons and position of the Sun in Zodiac signs correspond to both Thai astrology and current astronomical practices.

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References

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