ज्योतिषे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

Results of previous cbapters-Winter solstice in Phalguna and Magha-Successive year.beginoings in old times stared and explaioed-lhe second traditional year.begioning in the Tait. tirtya Saphitd-Winter solstice in Chaitra and vernal equinox in Pusarvasu-Vedic traditions corroborating the same-The commencement of the sacrifice with Aditi, the presiding deity of Punarvasū-The Abhijit day. The asteriemal Prajā pati with Chitra for his head-THB CONCLUSIONS-Periods of ancient Vedic literature stated and described - The Pre-Orion Period, 6000. 4000 B.C. The Orion Period, 4000-2500 B. C. The Krittika Period, 2500–1400 B. C.-Pre Buddistic Period, 1400-500 B. C. Not inconsistent with the results of Comparative Philology or Mythology-Rate of the precession of the equinoxes-Cor. rectly determined by the Hindus.Cootinuous record of the different positicns of the equinoxes in Sankrit literature-Tradi. tions based upon the same-Prajāpati, Rohiṇi and Rudra - Mean. ipg of Rohiṇi–The Kr̥ttikds in the Taittirīya Saobita and Vedanga Jyotiṣa-The equinox in Ashvini in later works,-Story of Vishvamitra- Notices of the recession of the rainy season from · Bhādrapada to Jyeshtbu Conclusions shown to be consistent with the traditions regarding the antiquity of Zoroaster and the Vedas. We have thus traced back one of the traditions about the old beginnings of the year, mentioned in the Taittirīya Sanhitt, to the oldest of the Vedic works, and what is still more important, shown that the Vedic traditions are in this Tespect completely corroborated by the oldest records and traditions of the other two sections of the Aryan race the Parsis and the Greeks. The traditions of each nation taken singly may not be conclusive, but when, putting all these together, and interpreting onc set in the light of another, we find that directly or indirectly all point to the same conclusion, their cumulative effect cannot but be CHAPTER VIII.) CONCLUSION, 199 conclusive. Scholars have already discovered the similarity between the traditions of the three nations, but without any clue to the period when all the Aryas lived together, it was impossible to reduce all these traditions into a harmonious whole. The traditions of Orion, and especially its position at the beginning of the equinoctial year, do, however, supply such a clue, and with its help the mystery about the oldest periods of Aryan civilization is consider ably cleared up. Thus if Orion is now no longer a hunter of unknown parentage, we need not also indulge in uncer tain speculations about the foamy weapon with which Indra killed his enemy, or how the four-eyed dogs came to be stationed at the Chinvat Bridge, or why the r̥bhus are said to be awakened by a dog at the end of the year. Astronomically the matter is as simple as it could be. All our measurements of time are directly based upon the changes in the positions of heavenly bodies. But there is no measurement of time, at present determined, which is longer than the period during which the equinoxes complete their revolution in the ecliptic. It is, therefore, the best measurement of time for determining the periods of anti quity, only if we have reliable records about the position of heavenly bodies in early days. Fortunately, such records of the time, when the Hellenic, the Iranian and the Indian Aryans lived tegether, have been preserved for us in the R̥gveda, and with the help of the Greek and Parsi traditions we can now uecipher these records inscribed on the specially cultivated memory of the Indian Aryans. Commencing with the passages in the Taittirīya Sanhits and the Brāhmaṇas, which declare that the Phalguni full. moon was once the new.year’s night, we found that Mriga shiras was designated by a name which, if rightly inter preted, showed that the vergal equinox coincided with that anterium in old times. This was, 80 to speak, a sort of · corroborative evidence of the truth of the statement in the Taittirīya Sanbita. A reference to the figure will show at a glance that if the sun be at the winter solstice on the Phalguni full moon day, the moon to be full must be diametrically opposite to the sun and also near Phalguni. Uttara Phalgupi will thus be at the summer solstice and the verbal equinox will coincide with Mr̥gaśiras. With the sol stice in Māgha, the equinox will be in the Kr̥ttikās ; while when the Uttarāyaṇa begins in Pausha the equinox is in Ashvini. Ashvint and Pauṣa, Kr̥ttikās and Māgha, and Mr̥gaśiras and Phālguna are thus the correlative pairs of successive year.beginnings depending entirely upon the pre cession of the equinoxes; and the facts, statements, texts and legends discussed in the previous chapters supply us with reliable evidence, direct and indirect, of the existence of all these year.beginnings in the various periods of Aryan civili. zation. It has been further shown that not only the traditions, but also the primitive calendar of the Parsis bears out the conclusions we have deduced from the Vedic works. We have so far considered only one of the traditional year beginnings recorded in the Taittirīya Saphita, the Phalguni sull-moon. But it may be asked how we interpret the other mentioned along with it, and almost in the same words. Apalogy al once suggests that we should interpret il in the same way as we have iolerpreted the first. With the Phalguni full-moon, at the winter colstice the verpal equinox was in Mr̥gaśiras; 50 with the Onitra full-moon at the solstice the vergal equinox would be in Punarvasa. 201 VIIL) CONCLUSION. Let us, therefore, see if we have evidence in the Vedic literature in support of such an ia terpretation. It may be observed that we are here entering upon the remotest period of antiquity, when the year was probably first determined with some approach to accuracy; and even in the Vedas there is hardly anything beyond vague traditions about this period, while the Grecks and the Parsis have not, it appears, preserved even these. There is no express passage which states that Puaarvasu was ever the first of the Nakṣatras, nor have we in this case a synonym like āgrahāyaṇa, or Orion, wherein we might discover similar traditions. There are, however, some indications about the oldest position of Punarvasū preserved in the sacrificial literature. The presiding deity of Puparyasa is Aditi, and we are told in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa i. 7, and the Taittirīya Saṁhitā vi. 1, 8.1, that Aditi has been blessed with a boon that all sacrifices must commence and end with her. The story begins with the stateaent that the Sacrifice (the mysterious sacrificial personage) went away from the gods. The gods were then unable to perform any further ceremonies, and did not know where it (the sacrifice) had gone to ; and it was Aditi that helped them, in this state, to find oul the proper commencement of the sacrifices. This clearly means, if it can mean anything, that before this time sacrifices were performed at random, but it was at this time resolved and fixed to commence them from Aditi. Aditi was thus the oldest and the first commencement of the sacrifice or the year. Io the Vājasaneyi saṁhitā 4. 19 Aditi is said to • Alt. Br, i. 7. A similar tradition about Orion la narrated in Oreak raytholoty, uit is stated tbat having lost his sight he follow. ed a guide to the cast in search of the sun and there, by, exposing ble tace to the rising sua, his sight was restored.

be ubhayatah shirshni, “ double-headed," and the commen tators interpret it to mean that the two termini of the sacrifices, which began and ended with Aditi, are the two heads bere alluded to. These traditions are further corrobo rated by the sacrificial ceremonies. According to the sacrificial terminology the 4th day before Viṣūvān or the central day of the yearly satra is called the Abhijit day. “In the sixth month,” observes Dr. Haug,* “there are three Abhiplava, shalahas (six-day’s periods) and one Prishthya shalaha.” This makes up the first 24 days of the sixth month. The following days are thus enumerated : the Abhijit day, the three svarasāman days and the Viṣūvān, or the central day which stands quite apart." Thus if we exclude the Vishuvip day, as standing apart by itself, this gives us four days, and with the (wo days-Atiratra and Chaturvinsha which sre taken up by the initial ceremonies of the satra, we make up the shalaha wapted to complete the six months. The Abhijit day thus falls on the fourth day before the Vishuvip. Now if Abhijit day be supposed to be named after the Nakṣatra of that name (i. e., when the sun is in Abhijit) then the Vishuvan, or the autumnal equinox must fall four days or as the sun travels over about 10 of the ecliptic each day, 4’-after the asterism of Abbijit; and it can be shewn by allronomical calculation that, with Aditi or Puparvasū at the verbal equinox to com mence the sacrifice, we get nearly the same result. In the Sūrya Siddhānta (viii. 3 table) the longitude of Punarvasū is said to be 93°, while that of Abhijit is 266° 40, that is, in other words, Abbijit would be about to behind the WENN • See Dr. Haug’s translation of the Aitareja ‘Brahn ana iv, 12, p. 279, note, VIII.] CONCLUSION. 203 autumnal equinox or Vishuvan, if we suppose the vernal equinox lo exactly coincide with Punarvasū. With the verpal equinox in Funarvasű there is again no other Nak shatra nearer to or at the autumnal equinox to mark the Viṣnūvān day. We can, therefore, now understand why Abhijit, which is so far away from the ecliptic, should have been included in the old list of the Nakṣatras. It marked the approach of the Viṣūvān in the primitive sacrificial calendar, but when it ceased to be used for that purpose owing to the falling back of seasons, it was naturally dropped from the list of the Nakṣatras, as it was far away from the Zodiac, If Bentley’s suggestion about Mūla and Jyeshthā be correct, this must have been done at the lime when the vernai equinox was in Orion. But be that as it may, it will, I think, be clear from the above that the position of the Abhijit day in the sacrificial literature fully supports the tradition about Aditi, the presiding deity of Pugarvasū having discovered the commencement of the sacrifice. Aditi at this time must have also separated the Devayāna from the Pitr̥yāna and thus may have been appropriately called the mother of the Devas (Rig. x. 72, 8).* It was from her that the Adityas were born (Rig. X. 72. 8 ; Shat. Br. iii. 1. 3. 2.), or the sun commenced his yearly course. • Aditi is here said to be the daughter of Daksha, also cf, Rig. vii. 16. 2. In Purdṇic traditions the 27 Nakṣatras are said to be the daughters of Daksha who gave them to the moon. If we com bine these two traditiona Aditi would be at the head oi all the Nakobatras, in the same way as Mr̥gaśiras or the Brittikas headed the list in later times. There are ngaio many legends in the Pura. ṇas, stating that everything was born (rom Aditi. We can account for all these facts if we place Aditi at the vernal equinox, when the crlcoder was first fixed for ‘be sacrificial purposes. The only other tradition I could find in the Vedic litera. lure about this position of Aditi is the story of the asterismal Prajāpati given in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa (1. 5. 2. 2).* The asterism of Chitrā is here said to be the head of this Prajāpati, Svāti the heart, Hasla the hand, Vishākhā the thighs, and Aoūrādhā the foot. Many conjectures are made about the meaning of this figure, but none of them satisfactorily explains why Prajāpati, who is said to be the god of time or the lustrum of years in the Vedānga Jyotiṣa, should have been represented in this way. I propose that we should interpret it after the manner of a similar represenlation of Brāhmaṇ by Badarayana, + wherein the different signs of the Zodiac are said to be similarly related to the different parts of the body of Brāhmaṇ or the Creator, Prof. Max Mūller has thus translated the verse :-" The ram is the head, the face of the Creator is the bull, the breast would be the man-pair, the heart the crab, the lion the stomach, the maid the hip, the balance-bearer the belly, the eighth (scorpion) the membrum, the archer his pair of thighs, the Makara his pair of koees, the pot his pair of legs, the fish his two feel.“I Thus if Mesha was Brahmin’s head when the Rashis were introduced Chitrā could well be said to be the head of Prajāpati when the Ohitra full-moop commenced the year. But though we *पा नक्षत्रीय प्रजापति वैद । उभयोरेनं लोकपोषिः । हस्स एवास्थ FR: Per fare fagant triis formed i afABgt: I get नक्षत्रीयः प्रजापतिः। +मेपः शिरोऽथ वदनं वृषभो विधातुः वक्षो भवभूमिथुनं हद कुलीरः। सिंहस्तयोदरमथो युवतिः कटिस बस्तिस्तुलामुदय मेहनमष्टम: स्यात् ।। धन्वीचास्योल्युगं मरो जानु भवति। antara $8: 9 ART ladia; what it can teach us? pp. 322, 323. VIII.) CONCLUSION. 200 can thus satisfactorily account for the fact why Chitra should have been called the head of Prajāpati, yet we can not give an equally satisfactory reason in the case of one of the Nakṣatras in this representation, unless we place three intercalary months in five years. It is, however, very difficuit to determine how the intercalary months were inserted, if at all, at this remote period, and the question must therefore, to a certain extent, remain unsolved for the present. The analogy of the pictorial representation of the twelve sigas of the Zodiac in later days, is, however, a strong ground to hold that the asterismal Prajāpati may have been similarly conceived when the primitive year was first determined on the Nakṣatra system. There is, so far as I know, no more evidence about this primitive calendar in the Vedic works, than what has been given above. But the traces of such period which we can discover in the sacrificial literature and especially the express mention in Taittirīya saṁhitā that the Chitra full-moon once commenced the year are, in my opinion, sufficient to prove the exist ence of such a calender in the primitive days. We cannot otherwise account why the first and last offerings in every sacrifice should be made to Aditi and why Abhijit day should precede the Viṣūvān by four days. Compared to the evidences ol the Orion period, these are slender male rials for the construction of the primitive Vedic calendar, but they are decidedly superior to the materials on which Dr. Geiger has determined the primitive calendar of the Iranians. It appears to me therefore that the oldest Vedic calendar, like the oldest hymn, was sacrificial; and that the sacrifice or the year commenced with Adili at the vernal equinox in or near Punarvasū. The phases of the moon, the seasons and the ayanas further guided the ancient Aryas in measuring time for sacrificial purposes. The asterism of Abhijit marked the approach of Viṣūvān or the central day, while Punarvasū, which soon after came to be called Yamakau, perhaps Yama and Yami, indicated the begia ing of the year. Sometime after this and before the veraal equinox had receded to Orion, the lunar months and tithis or days appear to have come in use; and, in fact, the whole calendar seems to have been rearranged, the year being made to commence from the winter solstice in the Chitrā full-moon. But this did not alter the sacrificial system, which, so far as the procedure is concerned, still continues to be what it was in the oldest days. For all civil purposes the new calendar was, however, at once adopied and the two systems have continued to exist side by side up to the present day, though in a consider ably modified form, as described before in the second Chapter The oldest period in the Aryan civilization may there. fore be called the Aditi or the pre-Orion period, and we may roughly assiga 6000-4000 B. O. as its limits. It was a period when the finished hymos do not seem to have been known aud half-prose and half-poetical Nivids or sacrificial formulæ “giving the principal names, epithets, and feats of the deity invoked” were probably in use. The Greeks and the Parsis have relaided no traditions of this period, for the simple reason that they carried with them only the calendar which was in force when they left the common home, while the Indian Aryas have preserved all the tradi tions with a super-religious fidelity and scrupulousness. It is thus that I explain why the oldest Greek and Parsi traditions do not go beyond Orion. VIII.) CONCLUSION. 207 We next come to the Orion piriod which, roughly speak. ing extended from 4000 B. C. to 2500 B. C., from the time when the verbal equinox was in the asterism of Ardra to the time when it receded to the asterism of the Krittikas. This is the most important period in the history of the Aryan civilization. A good many sūktas in the R̥gveda (6.g. that of Vr̥ṣakapi, which contains a record of the begining of the year where the legend was first conceived) were suag at this time, and several legends were either formed anew or developed from the older ones. The Greeks and the Parsis appear to have left the common home during the latter part of this period as they have retained most of these legends, and even the attributes of the constellation of Mr̥gaśiras, olherwise called Agrayana, Orion or the Pauryeni. We can now easily understand why no confirma tory evidence about the Krittika-period is found either in the R̥gveda or in the Greek and Parsi legends and traditions This was pre-eminently the period of the hymns. The third of the Kritlika-period commences with the vernal equinox in the asterism of the Kritlikās and extends up to the period recorded in the Vedānga Jyotiṣa, that is, from 2500 B. C. to 1400 B, C. It was the period of the Taittirīya Saṁhitā and several of the Brāhmaṇas. The hymns of the R̥gveda had already become antique and unintelli gible by this time and the Brahmavādios indulged in speculations, often too free, about the real meaning of these hymns and legends, attributing the use of the foamy weapon used by Indra to a compact between him and Namuchi. It was at this time that the Sahitās were probably compiled into systematic books and attempts made to ascertain the meanings of the oldest hymns and formulæ. It was also during this period that the Indians appear to have come in contact with the Chinese, and the latter borrowed the Hindu Nakṣatra system. I do not mean to say that Hindus might not have improved their system by the mutual inter change of ideas as they did when they came to know of Greek astronomy. But the system was decidedly of Hindu origin and of purely Hindu origio being handed down from the remotest or the pre-Orion period in the Vedic literature. M. Biot was unable to assign any reason why the Chinese should have taken a leap from the shoulder to the belt of Orion to choose their fourth sicu. But with the older Hindu traditions the question admits of an easy explanation, as the belt was therein the real Mr̥gaśiras or rather the top of Mriga’s head. The fourth and the last period of the old Sanskrit liter ture extends from 1400 B. O, 10 500 B. C. or to the birth and rise of Buddhism. It was the period of Sūtras and philoso phical systems. It may be called the real pre-Buddhistic period. But as this has been sufficiently discussed by other writers I Deed not go into its further details. I do not mean to lay down hard-and-fast limits of each of these periods of antiquity, nor do I intend to say anything about the period which must have elapsed before the Vedic Aryas were able to fix their primitive calender in the Aditi period. The begioning of the Aryan civilization must up doubtedly be placed a long time before the people were able to conceive and determine the calender. But I do not wish to enter here into these speculations. I take my stand only upon what we find recorded in the Vedic works, and hence all that I mean is that if the astroncmical allusions, references, facts, and legends in the Vedic works can have any meaning, we cannot materially shorten the periods I have here indi. VIII.) CONCLUSION. 209 cated. We may pot rely on vague traditional beliefs amongst one nation alone, but when we find that the traditions of India, Greece, and Iran, agree in their important features, and can be explained salisfactorily only by placing the vernal equinox in Orion, and when we have an express authority for doing so in the R̥gveda, I do not think that we can reasonably refuse to accept the conclusions deduced there. from. It is true that we have determined the oldest Vedic periods from the traditions we find recorded in the R̥gveda, and, strictly speaking, it is the periods of the traditions and not of the hymns into which they have been incorporated. But this does not, in my opinion, materially affect the conclusions we have arrived at above regarding the ancient period of the Vedic literature. I don’t mean to deny that the hymns may not have been sung some time after these traditions and legends were originally conceived, or that after they were first sung the hymns might not have been somewhat modified in form in passing from mouth to mouth before they became settled in the form in which we now possses them. But though so much may be legitimately conceded, I think that it is impos. sible to hold that the hymns were composed thousands of years after the stories narrated in them were first conceived. For, as a matter of fact, we find that the R̥gveda hymns had already become antiquated and unintelligible in the days of the Tailtirīya saṁhitā and the Brāhmaṇas. The Taittirīya saṁhitā places the vernal equinox in the Kr̥ttikās, and I have shown that we must fix its date at about 2500 B. C. If the hymns of the R̥gveda saṁhitā were unintelligible at this time, they must have been sung several conturies before it. The com parison of the Taittirīya with the R̥gveda Saphitā further shows that while the first mentions three year.beginnings one current and lno old the second only mentions one. Again, the R̥gveda saṁhitā contains no reference to the Kr̥ttikās as the mouth of the Nakṣatras. I therefore con clude that the legends in question must have been incorporated into the hymas of the R̥gveda, when they were still intelli gible, that is, in the Orion period. It is of course impossible to determine the dates of individual hymas. That all of them were not sung at one time is quite evident from their style, some of the hymos distinctly speak of older hymns or bards, while in Rig. x. 99.9 the hymns are said to proceed directly from the purūṣa or the sacrificial personage. All that we can therefore legitimately say is that the hymns, which contain older traditions and legends, e. g, of the r̥bhus and Vr̥iṣa kapi, must have been composed in the Orion period. Some of the hymos may even be still older and some laler, but generally speaking we may suppose that 4000 and 2500 B.O. are the limits of this period. This may require us to assume the existence of some Vedic verses al a time when the Hindus, the Greeks and the Parsis lived together. Some scholars may hesitate to accept such a conclusion. But so far as I know the conclusion is not inconsistent with the results of comparative Philology or Mythology. Prof. Max. Mūller in his Biographies of Words (pp. 188.198) gives a list of about sixty mythological names which may be shewa to be common to Greek and Sanskrit.* If 80 many mytho Jogical games can be shewn to be phonetically identical it is impossible to suppose that no songs, celebrating the deeds of these deities, existed in the Indo-Germanic period. Westphal * For instance Ribku is compared to Greek Orpheus, Saramā to Gk. Elenes, Vr̥tra to Gk, Orthros, Dāsahantar to Ok. Deophentes. I have already referred to his suggestion regarding the comparison of Vr̥ṣakapi with Gk. Erikapaeos. If all these deities existed in the mon.Cermie period, why not their hymns ? NORTH POLE JUM SOW ECLIPTIC TQUATOR VIN,SOL. SOUTH POLE EXPLANATION :-The figure is drawn on the supposition that the earth (E) is in the centre, that the sun moves in the Ecliptic, and the precession of the equinoxes is caused by the motion of the Ecliptic. With a given Nakṣatra at the vernal equinox, we can here at once find what Nakṣatras would be at the other cardigal points and hence also the nionth at the VIII) CONCLUSION. 211 has already proved the existence of poetry in the Indo Germanic period, and Dr. Kuha has endeavoured to trace whole formula back to the beginning of Indo-European poetry. Verbal coincidences such as, Sk. pada, Av. padha, Gk. pous, all meaning a metrical foot, again point to the same conclusion. The results of comparative Philology, are therefore, not only not inconsistent with, bul, on the contrary, corroborate the conclusions we have independently deduced from the astronomical references and allusions recorded in the old Vedic literature. But I would not make my case rest on such grounds. It must be remembered that we have not been speculating in any way about the oldest Vedic periods. Our conclusions have been based on express statements and texts in the Vedic literature and unless the texts themselves are questioned or other more reasonable interpretations suggested, we shall not be justified in disregarding these results, simply because they do not support certain literary hypotheses, guesses, or conjectures, as for instance, those that have been previously referied to in the first chapter. The results of the literary method may be moderate. But moderation is a virtue only when we have to make guesses about the periods of antiquity from uncertain data. Where however we have definite texts and traditions to rely upon, nothing but prejudice can deler us from drawing legitimate conclusions from them on the ground that they take us too far back. The astronomical method, I admit, is vague, in so far as it does not enable us to determine the exact date of all the Vedic hymns or works, but it is certainly superior to the linguistic method inasmuch as it supplies us with certain definite and undisputed facts, for instance, the position See Dr. Schrader’s Pre-historic Antiquities of Aryan Peoples, Part I., Chap. II., pp. 27, 28. of the equinoxes which can safely be made the nuclei of the different periods of antiquity. When the centres of each period are thus indisputably fixed and determined, we can then use the literary or the linguistic method to supplement these results by determining the duration of each period. There would then be no real opposition between the two methods. The one would determine the specific points of time, while the other would give us the range of the different periods. In other words, the first would supply the piers and the second the arches of the bridge, which we mean to construct across the period of antiquity, and which must therefore be completed with the assistance of both, It may, however, be urged that if the beginning of the year was twice altered owing to the precession of the equinoxes, how is it that we do not find the traces of the intermediate stages or of the changes in the seasons in the old Vedic works? llow, it may be further asked, did the Indian Aryas not discover the precession of the equinoxes in the early Vedic limes ? But it is not at all difficult to answer these questions. We might as well ask how no one before Bhāskarācārya or Newton ever thought of the attraction of the earth, though since the very beginning of the human race every one observed heavy cbjects falling down to the surface of the carth. The reason is plain enough. Celestial and natural phenomena cannot be lathom. ed or understood without a steady and close observation for ceoturies, and, above all, until all the auxiliary, or rather the whole group of sciences are proportionally developed. If we bear this circumstance in mind, we can, I am sure, discover sufficient traces of the intermediate chaoges in the Vedic works. Thus we find that of all the ancient VIII.) CONCLUSION. 213 gations the Hiudus alone had well nigh accurately delermined the rate of the motion of the precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus considered it lo be not less than 36”, while the actual motion at present is 80 25 per year. Ptolemy adopted, as observed by Prof. Whilney, the minimum of 36’ determined by Hipparchus; and it is evident that the Hindu astronomers who fixed the rate at 54" per year could not have borrowed it from the Greeks. Prof. Whitney is at a loss to understand how the Hindus succeeded in arriving at a determination of the rate of motion, so much more accurate than was made by the great Greek astonomer, and he observes that it might be a “lucky hit on their part.”* But why should they try 10 hit, even luckily, when they could have easily borrowed it from the Greeks? I am therefore disposed to think that it was independently, and almost correctly, discovered by the Hindus long before other nations could do so, though we cannot exactly fix the period when it was done; and that there were sufficient materials for the purpose in the old literature of India. Let us next see what traditions about the intermediate stages have been preserved. First of all I refer to the tradition of Rudra killing Prajāpati, the god of time, for receding towards his daughter Rohiṇi. The Aitareya Brāhmaṇa (iii. 33) describes this conduct of Prajāpati as akrita or unprecedented and such as deserved to be severely noticed by the gods. Can we not hercia discover the fact that the sun was gradually receding towards Robiṇi, by the precession of the equinoxes? The ancient priests, who observed the fact as they watched the Nak. * Sec Whitney’s notes to the Sūrya Siddhdota, iii, 13., p. 105. shatras at the commencement of the year, could not account for the change, and they rightly and honestly believed that it was a great calamity that the sun or Prajāpati should thus follow an unprecedented course. I have previously referred to a verse from Garga," which says that if the Uttarāyaṇa commenced otherwise than from the asterism of Dhanishthā it foretold a great danger; and we may suppose that the Vedic Aryas similarly believed that if the sun ceased to commeace the year from Orion, it was an unpecedeoted calamity. Prajā pati, however, was punished for his unusual conduct, and there the matter ended for the time being. I may also refer here to the ancient mode of deriving the word Rohini. The Arabs called it Al-Dabaran or “the follower"evidently because it came next after the Krittikast Bnt thc Hindus called it Rohiṇi, “the ascended” inasmuch as they noticed that the sun gradually ran towards it in oldest days. It has been sug. gested that we should explain the legend of Praja pati by reference to the daily risiog of Rohiṇi, Mr̥gaśiras, and Rudra ia successiou. But this explanation hardly accounts for the fact why Prajāpati was coosidered as literally running after Rohiṇi in an uuprecedented way. Surely we cannot suppose that the Vedic priests were ignorant of the fixed pontion of these constellations, and if so, we cannot account for the fact why they considered Projā pati as running after and thinking of living together with Rohini unless they had noticed the actual recession of the sun towards Rohint owing to the equinoxes. The tradition of Prajāpati and Rudra is thus comparatively speaking a later tradition though it seems to bave been completely formed before the separation of the Greeks and the Parsis-from the Indian Aryan • Sua supra, Chapter II, p. 19. Sto Whitney’s notes to Sūrya Sid., viii, 9., p. 185. VIL] CONCLUSION. 216 But the question, which was dropped at this time after punishing Prajāpati, was again taken up when the equinox had receded to the Kr̥ttikas. The seasons had fallen back by one full mouth and the priests altered the year-beginning from the Phalguns to the Magha full-moon, while the list of the Nakṣatras was made to commence from the Kr̥ttikas, instead of from Agrahayaṇa. There is nothing surprising in the fact that the change should have been quietly introduced when we see that Varahamihira did the same in the fifth century after Christ when the Ashvini system was introduced.* The calendar was mainly used for the sacrificial purposes, and when the priests actually obserxed that the sun was in the Kr̥ttikās, and not in Mr̥gaśiras, when day and įnight were equal, they altered the commencement of the year to the Kr̥ttikas, especially as it was more convenient to do so at this time when the cycle of seasons had receded by one full mooth. The priests knew that the year commenced a month earlier in older days, but like Varahamihira they must have appealed more to the actual facts, as they saw them, and introduced the change without attempting to discover its real cause. The Vedānga Jyotiṣa introduces the third change, when the seasons had further fallen back, not by a month, but by a fortnight. It was probably during this interval that the beginning of the month was altered from the full-moon to the new-moon, and when this beginning of the month was so altered, advantage was taken of the receding of the seasons by a fortnight, to commence the year with the new-moon in Dhanishthā as the Vedānga Jyotiṣa has done. From this the next recorded step is 10 Ashvini There is, however, an interesting story related in the Mahabharata * See supra Chap. Ill. p. 36. which evidently refers to an abortive attempt to reform the calender when the seasons had again fallen back by a fortnight. In the 71st chapter of Adiparva we are told that Visvamitra attempted to create a new world, and make the Nakṣatras commence with Shravana, instead of Dhanishtha; and the same story is alluded to in the Ashvamedha Parva, chapter 44. The tradition can also be found in other Purāṇas where Visvāmitra is represented as endeavouring to create a Dew celestial sphere. It appears, however, that he did not succeed, and the Kriitika-system, as modified by the Vedānga Jyotiṣa, continued to regulate the calendar until the list of the Nakṣatras was quietly made to begin, as noticed in the third chapter, with Ashvini in later times. We bave thus an almost continuous record of the year. beginnings from the oldest time down to the present in the literature of Iodia, and in the face of this evidence it’is use less to indulge in uncertain speculations about the antiquity of the Vedas. I have already referred to the occurrence of the pitr̥.paksha in Bhādrapada as a relic of the time when the year commenced with the Phalgugi-full-moon. Our Shravaṇi ceremony appears to have been once performed in Bhādrapada (Manu iv. 96 ); and as it marked the begin ning of the rains, when the herbs appear anew (Ashvālayana • Maba. Adi. 71, 34. काराम्यं पाकुडो गक्षत्रसंपदा। srautargentot warenfor E17 #: 0 nad again in the Askv. 44.2. WE: V not af: #11: 981ca; par: 1 kuoret for ano man anarqa: 11 VIII.] CONCLUSION, 217 Grihya Sūtra iii. 5, 2), we can here trace the recession of the rainy season from Bhādrapada to Shravana and from Shrāvaṇa to Ashedha (śānkhyāyana Brāhmaṇa i. 3) and fipally from Aṣādha to Jyeṣtha, as at present, thus fully corroborating the recession of the beginning of the year or the winter solstice from Chaitra to Phālguna, from Phālguna to Māgha, and from Magha to Pausha. The evidence of the recession of the seasons is not, however, as complete as that of different year-beginnings, inasmuch as there are various local causes besides the precession of the equinoxes that affect the ocur. rence of the seasons. The seasons in the Central India and Central Asia cannot, for instance, be the same, and if the Aryas came into India from the North-West, the very change of locality must have caused a corresponding change in the seasons. The evidence of the change of seasons cannot therefore be supposed to be so reliable and conclusive as that of the successive changes in the beginning of the year above mentioned. Lastly, there remaios only one question to be considered. Is the Vedic period here determined consistent with the traditions and opinions entertained about it by the ancient and modern scholars? I think it is. I have already referred to the remarks of Prof. Weber who, though he regards the Ksiltikā evidence as vague and uncertain, yet on geographical and historical grounds arrives at the conclusion that the beginnings of the Indian literature may be traced back to the time when the Indian and the Iranian Aryas lived together ; and this opinion is confirmed by the fact that there are Yashts in the Zend Avesta which may be considered as " reproductions” of the Vedic hymos. Dr. Haug considers that this condition may be satisfied if we place the beginning of the Vedic literature in 2400 B.C;* but he was not cognisant of the fact that the vernal equinox can be shown to have been in Mr̥gaśiras at the time when the Parsis and the Indians lived together. In the light of this now evideoce, there is therefore no reasonable objection for carrying the periods of the Vedic literature further back by over a thousands years or to about 4000 B. C. This period is further consistent with the fact that in 470 B. C. Xanthos of Lydia considered Zoroaster to have lived about 600 years before the Trojan War (about 1800 B.O.); t for according to our calculation the Parsis must have separated from the Indian Aryas in the latter part of the Orion period, that is to say, between 3000 to 2500 B. C; while, if we suppose that the separation occurred at a considerably later date, a Greek writer in the fifth century before Christ would certainly have spoken of it as a recent event. Aristotle and Eudoxus have gone still further and placed the cra of Zoroaster as much as 6000 to 6000 years before Plalo. The qumber of years here given is evidently traditional, but we can at any rate infer from it this much that at the time of Aristotle (about 320 B. C.) Zoroaster was considered to have lived at a very remote period of antiquity; and if the era of Zoroaster is to be considered to old, a fortiori, the period of the Vedas must be older still. Then we have further to consider the fact that an epic poem was written in Greek in about 900 or 1000 B.O. The language of this cpic is so volike that of the Vedic hymos that we must suppose it to have been composed long time after the Greeks left their ancient home and travelled westward. It is not, therefore, at all impro. bable that they separated after the formation of the legends • Dr. Houg’s lotr, to Ait. Br., p. 48. + See Dr, Haug’s Binays oa Parsis, p. 288. VIII.] CONCLUSION. 219 of Orion and before the vernal equinox was in the Kr̥ttikas, that is, between 3000 to 3000 B. C. Finally we can easily understand how the acutest and most learned of Indian theologians and scholars believed the Vedas to have come down to them from an unknown period of antiquity. A revelation need not necessarily be anādi, or without a begin ning. The history of the Bible and the Koran shows us that a revelation can be conceived to be made at a particular period of time. If so, the mere fact that it is believed to be revealed does not account for the opinion entertained by the Hindu theological writere that the Veda has come down lo them from times beyond the memory of man. Some of these writers lived several centuries before Christ, and it is quite natural to suppose that their opinions were formed from traditions current in their times. The periods of the Vedic antiquity we have determined render such an explanation highly probable. According to the Christian theology, the world was created only about 4000 years before Christ; or, in other words, the notions of antiquity entertained by these Christian writers could not probably go beyond 4000 B. C., and not being able to say anything about the period preceding it, they placed the beginning of the world at about 4000 B. C. The Indian theologians may be supposed to have acted somewhat in the same manner. I have shewn that the most active of the Vedic period commenced at about 4000 B. C., and there are grounds for carrying it back still further. The form of the hymns might have been more or less mcdified in later times; but the matter remained the same, and coming down from such a remote antiquity it could have been easily believed by Jaimidis Panini, and the prahmāvadin of old to have been in existence VIII. almost from the beginning of the world, or rather the beginning of all known things. We can thus satisfactorily account for all the opinions and traditions current about the age of the Vedas amongst ancient and modern scholars ia lodia and in Europe, if we place the Vedic period at about 4000 B, C, in strict accordance with the astronomical references and facts recorded in the ancient literature of India. When everything can thus be consistently explained, I leave it to scholars to decide whether the above period should or shuuld not be accepted as determining, as correctly as it is possible to do under the circumstances, the oldest period of Aryan civilization. It is the unerring clock of the heavens that has helped us in determining it, and it is, in my opinion, hardly probable to discover better means for the purposes. The evidence was in danger of being obliterated out of the surface of the heavens, when the Greeks borrowed their astronomical terminology from the Egyptians. But it has fortunately escaped and outlived, not only this, but also another threatened attack when it was proposed in England and Germany to name the constellation of Orion after Nelson or Napoleon as a mark of respect for these heroes. The bold and brilliant Orion, with his attendant Canis, preserves for us the memory of far more important and sacred times in the history of the Aryan race.