why?

[suntrack2]

why the old people use to bath after the eclipse may be it sun eclipse or moon eclipse, is there any sort of co-relation 1. any sort of light effect, 2. any negative effect may fall on the human skin? 3. or it was just they did as their ancesters told them to take the bath? 4. which particular eliclipse is not good for the human being to see or observe.?

[Halcyon Dayz]

I've never even heard of that.
Is that an Indian thing?

[Nowhere Man]

I've never heard of the custom of washing after an eclipse. Must be a regional thing.

1. No light effect that I can think of.
2. For a lunar eclipse, no effect at all. For a solar eclipse there is a benefit -- less sun on the skin means less sunburn. On the other hand, less sun on the skin means less vitamin D is produced. But these are positively minor compared to night.
3. Yeah, probably just a custom driven by superstition.
4. You can look at a lunar eclipse all you want. But NEVER NEVER NEVER look directly at a solar eclipse (or the sun for that matter) without adequate protection.

May I direct you once again to Wikipedia for info about solar and lunar eclipses. Googling "eclipse viewing" (without the quotes) will give you instructions on how to safely view a solar eclipse.

Fred

[TriangleMan]

I've never heard of a custom of bathing after an eclipse.

See Nowhere Man's post regarding looking at solar eclipses (looking at lunar eclipses are safe though).

[TriangleMan]

Found a website discussing bathing during an eclipse, it is a religious custom in India (Hindu?). In summary the website says you should bathe after an eclipse because the eclipse causes darkness, which is impure, so you should bathe to purify yourself.

[01101001]

Oh, just thought I'd take the opportunity to ask thread-starters to please give their threads titles that are more descriptive of their contents. A title like "Why?" doesn't really tell me much about what I'm going to encounter when I venture into the topic, or give me much reason to do so. Thanks.

[Nowhere Man]

Heh. When I saw the title, I was tempted to post simply "Because."

But suntrack 2 now has an answer, provided by the Google-fu of TriangleMan. Of course, if darkness makes you impure, do/did the oldsters wash themselves every morning, or (taking things to absurdity) every time they leave a dark room?

Fred

[Laminal Cockroach]

I've never even heard of that.
Is that an Indian thing?

I think it might actually be an Indian thing you know, as far as i know, during the solar eclipse,, ppll thought it was dark and all the insects would gather down or something im not sure dut it was meant to be somewhat an impure occasion to take a bath...

[suntrack2]

very interisting replies and counter questions thanks to all, now you will also be surprise to hear the following one:

the womens who are carrying never looks any kind of eclipse and nor they came out of their houses, even they never cut any sort of vegitables and so on during the eclipse and even never take any kind of meal during the sun and moon eclipse, in my opinion that the antibodies may be develop in that sort of situation when the eclipse is live. this is not ofcourse a religious aspect. secondly for many hours the astronaughts who came from the outer region on earth after the complition of their exploring missions, they have been kept away from the earth life for number of hours, so do you think that there is a great resemblence in such things that the outer space bacterias attacks invisibly on the earth's life? and if there is no still life found in the space, so is it true that there are bacterias on any one planet out of all planets excluding earth? what do you think.

thank you very much for the link Triangleman. ( i think that this is not an religious aspect to do such and such, may there is some different cause behind this sort of act).

sunil

[suntrack2]

sorry read interesting instead of interisting in the first line.

[Nowhere Man]

Let's see if I can parse this out...

the womens who are carrying never looks any kind of eclipse and nor they came out of their houses, even they never cut any sort of vegitables and so on during the eclipse and even never take any kind of meal during the sun and moon eclipse,

(By "carrying," I assume you mean "pregnant.") This sounds like more of the same kind of custom as bathing, driven by ancient superstition. Back in the Old Days, before we (humans, that is) figured out what eclipses were and could predict them, it was a very frightening thing to have the sun suddenly disappear in the middle of the day. Even if it did come back a few minutes later, there must have been something very important happening in the sky to block the sun. Was it a dragon hiding it, or were the gods trying to send a message, and so on. So a lot of customs grew up under the blocked-out sun.

So, if the Hindu/Indian belief is that an eclipse makes you impure, then it kind of makes sense that pregnant women should be kept from its effects as much as possible, to keep harm from the unborn child.

in my opinion that the antibodies may be develop in that sort of situation when the eclipse is live. this is not ofcourse a religious aspect.

But there is no scientific evidence that a solar eclipse is any different than an overcast day or just plain night, or that a lunar eclipse is different than a cloudy night or a new moon. So the belief that an eclipse makes you impure has no basis, so that is no reason for pregnant women to miss this wonderful natural light show.

secondly for many hours the astronaughts who came from the outer region on earth after the complition of their exploring missions, they have been kept away from the earth life for number of hours,

This sounds like what was done for the early Apollo moon landings. NASA and its scientists were pretty darn sure that there were no disease bacteria, etc., on the moon, but in order to keep the uninformed public from panicing (and also just in case), the men were kept in quarantine for a few weeks after they returned. Later Apollo missions dispensed with the quarantines, after nothing bad happened. Mercury, Gemini, and other US space missions also did not bother with quarantine.

(Aside on spelling: It's "astronaut," not "astronaught." "Astronaught" implies that they really aren't (naught means nothing or zero) and is a favorite of people who claim that the Apollo moon landings were faked. "Astronot" is also used by this camp.)

so do you think that there is a great resemblence in such things that the outer space bacterias attacks invisibly on the earth's life?

Well, now we're getting into speculation. So far, we haven't found any bacteria, etc., that we could determine for sure did not come from good old Earth.

and if there is no still life found in the space, so is it true that there are bacterias on any one planet out of all planets excluding earth? what do you think.

We've only explored one other planet (Mars) to the extent of checking for life, and gotten results between "No way" and "Very probably not." My opinion? I think that Earth is not the only life-bearing planet in the universe. Where are the others? I don't know. Could their micro-organisms cause trouble for us? I don't know. What are the odds that life from another planet could make it to Earth? Probably very very low.

Fred

[Kaptain K]

Even if the universe is teeming with life, the odds are almost zero that the biochemistry of any other life we might find would be close enough to that of Earth to allow any cross infection (either way).

[suntrack2]

thank you nowhere man for the anatomy of the question there are lot of possibilities and some questions are remain unanswered, its ok, i feal that is there another story related with this topic, that's why i raise the questions.

thanks, is there anything new?