Arundhati-Vasistha.

 Arundhati-Vasistha.

Arundhati

As per the Bhagavata Purana, Arundhati is the eighth among the nine daughters of Kardama and Devahuti. She is the grandmother of Parashara and the great-grandmother of Vyasa.

The Shiva Purana describes her (Arundhati)  as being Sandhya, the mind-born daughter of Brahma, in a previous birth. On the instruction of Vasishtha, Sandhya pleased Shiva with penance to purify herself from passion, and Shiva asked her to jump into the fire.

The Mahabharata describes Arundhati as an ascetic who used to give discourses to even the sages.

Vasishtha

Vasishtha is one of the oldest and most revered Vedic rishis or sages. He was one of the Saptarishis (seven great Rishis). Vasishtha is credited as the chief author of Mandala 7 of the Rigveda. Vasishtha and his family are mentioned in Rigvedic verse 10.167.4. His ideas have been influential, and he was called the first sage of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy by Adi Shankara.

Vasishtha is known as the priest and preceptor, teacher of the Ikshvaku kings clan. He was also the preceptor of Manu, the progenitor of Kshatriyas and Ikshvaku's father. Other characters like Nahusha, Rantideva, lord Rama and Bhishma were his disciples. When the Bharata king Samvarta lost his kingdom to the Panchalas, he became the disciple of Vasishtha. Under Vasishtha's guidance, Samvarta regained his kingdom and became the ruler of the earth.

Mizar is known as Vashista and Alcor is known as Arundhati in traditional Indian astronomy. The pair is considered to symbolize marriage. Arundhati and Vashistha were a married couple. Arundhati and Vasistha were considered an ideal couple, symbolic of marital fulfilment and loyalty. During the marriage ceremonies of Hindus, one of the rituals is the groom showing the bride the double stars of Vasishta and Arundhati.

In some Hindu communities, priests conducting a wedding ceremony allude to or point out the constellation as a symbol of the closeness marriage brings to a couple.

The secret behind watching/pointing to the stars is that in most twin star systems one star is stationary and the other rotates around it, while Arundhati and Vashistha both rotate in synchrony.

To say that both husband and wife must do all things in synchronization and that the husband must not rotate around the wife or that the wife should not dance to the tune of her husband, this ritual was made a part of the marriage ceremony.

This is not explained in marriages although the Pandit takes the couple out and shows the twin star.

The greatness of our ancestors/scholars was that they could know that such a twin star system exists and how they rotate even without the telescope.

Women in India had a higher stature in society. It’s Arundhati-Vashistha and not Vashistha-Arundhati. Women had more respect than men.

The two stars Arundhati and Vasistha are now identified as a part of a multiple star system. They have a mutual orbital motion typical of multiple star systems. So, to a terrestrial observer, Arundhati can appear as positioned ahead of Vasistha (or Vasistha can appear as positioned ahead of Arundhati) due to the changing position of Arundhati in its orbit around the centre of the multi-star-system. Since the orbital period is very long, till almost around 4000 BCE Arundhati was ahead of Vasistha and after that Vasistha became ahead of Arundhati, like it is now. Nilesh went by the statement of Vyasa in Mahabharata, that Arundhati is moving ahead of Vasistha and deduced that the Kurukshetra War must be placed in the time sector preceding 4000 BCE.

Vyasa tells about both (Arundhati is moving /positioned ahead of Vasistha and the mark on the moon has shifted) as if they both happened suddenly close to the start of the Kurukshetra War. But since based on Nilesh's admission, Arundhati was indeed positioned ahead of Vasistha for so many years (not just moments, days, or months, but years!) from around 11,500 BCE to around 4000 BCE. 

Ref:

Chapple 1984, p. xi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_(Hinduism)

 Gopal, Madan (1990). K.S. Gautam (ed.). India through the ages. Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.