Indian Antiquary Vol 24

SR No.: 032516
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 390
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

Page 374

364
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1895.
into the question at all, and as if the Brahmanas ever made any pretence to such astronomical exactness as would be implied in their drawing the solstitial colure between the former and the latter Phalguni's! What they have really done is bad and blundering enough, but quite of a piece with their general treatment of matters involving astronomical observation. For it is senseless to talk, in connection with the full moon in Phâlguna, of a year-limit between the two Phalguni's; if the definition would fit the circumstances in a given year, it could not possibly do so in the year following, nor in the year after that, nor ever in two years in succession. All that we have any right to infer from these Brahmaņa passages is that they recognize a reckoning of the year (among others) that makes it begin in Phâlguna ; and this might be for one of a great many reasons besides the occurrence of the solstice near that group of stars fonr thousand years before Christ. In fact, all inferences drawn from varying beginnings of the year, in one and another and another month, seem to me helplessly weak supports for any important theory. With their customary looseness in regard to such matters, the ancient Hindus reckoned three, or five, or six, or seven seasons (rita) in the year; and there was no controlling reason why any of these might not have been given the first place the vacillating relations of the lunar months to the actual seasons adding their share to the confusion. Of course, any given month being taken as first, the ancient four-month sacrifices, of primary importance, would be arranged accordingly.
Professor Jacobi even tries (though with becoming absence of dogmatism) to derive a little support from the names of the two asterisms which, with the vernal equinox at Mrigasiras (Orion's head), would enclose the antumnal equinox, namely Jyeshtha eldest' before the equinox, and Mala 'root' after it: the former, he thinks, might designate the "old" year, and the latter be that out of which the new series springs and grows. But how should jyeshtha, * oldest' or 'chief,' ever come to be so applied ? The superlative is plainly and entirely unsuited to the use; and an asterism does not suggest a year, but only a month; and the asterism and month just left behind would properly be styled rather the " youngest," the most recent, of its series. If we are to determine the relations of the asterisms on such fancifal etymological grounds (after the manner of the Brahmanas), I would repeat my suggestion, made in the notes to the Súrya-Siddhanta, that Müla (tail of the Scorpion) is 'root' as being the lowest or sonthern most of the whole series; that Jyeshthi (Antares, etc.) is its “oldest" branch, while in Visakha divaricate' (a and B Libræ it branches apart toward Sváti (Arcturus) and Chitra (Spica); this is at least much more plausible than our author's interpretation.
Finally, after claiming that these various evidences "point unmistakably" (untrüglich) to the asserted position of the equinox at Orion in the oldest Vedic period, Prof. Jacobi goes on as follows: “ The later Vedie period has applied a correction, consisting in the transfer of the initial point to Ksittika (the Pleiades); and this very circumstance gives their determination a real significance; it must have been nearly right at the time of the correction." Here he seems to me to be wanting in due candor; I cannot see that he has any right to make such a statement without at least adding a caveat: " provided the system of asterisms was really of Hindu origin and modification," or something else equivalent to this. Donbtless he cannot be ignorant of the discussions and discordance of opinion on this subject, nor unaware that at least some of those who have studied it most deeply hold views which would deprive his statement of all value. If the asterismal system were limited to India, there would be much less reason for regarding it as introduced there from abroad - and yet, even in that case, some would doubtless have been acute enongh to suspect a foreign origin. But it is found (as was pointed out above) over a large part of Asia ; and the only question is whether it was brought into India or carried out of India. What possible grounds bas Prof. Jacobi for regarding its Indian origin as so certain that the opposing view has no claim even to be referred to ? The eminent French astronomer Biot thought that he had proved it primitively Chinese, by an array of correspondences and historical evidences alongside of which our author's proofs of a remote