Indian Antiquary Vol 50

SR No.: 032542
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 468
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 51

FEB., 1921]
THE NAKSHATRAS AND PRECESSION
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There is nothing definite in Vedic literature regarding the positions of the nakshatras, and the accepted identifications cannot be traced back earlier than about the fifth century A.D. Indeed the earliest known complete list of positions is possibly much later than this. To utilise an identification of about A.D. 450 for a period over 3000 years earlier requires justification, and so far that justification is not forthcoming.
The connexion between the nakshatras and the ecliptic has generally been looked upon as a sort of corollary of the constellation idea. A diagram, showing the relative positions of the selected constellations and the ecliptic, demonstrates, one might say, as much disconnexion as connexion.
4. It is often the case that two independent notions, in the course of time become amalgamated, and here it is quite conceivable that (i) the nakshatras as connected with certain constellations and (ii) the nakshatras as connected with the ecliptic have independent origins. In early Hindu works the former notion is extremely vague, but there is little doubt that the term nakshatra often indicates a star or constellation. In the Jyotisha Vedanga, however, a nakshatra simply indicates one twenty-seventh part of the ecliptic and has no connexion with any constellation. This is the orthodox astronomical teaching, from which we are led to believe that the normal astronomical use of the list of nakshatras was that of a scale of the ecliptic like the western astronomical use of the signs of the zodiac. The first point of Krittikâ would thus always denote the vernal equinox and would in no way be affected by precession.
5. Such considerations lead us to a conception of the nakshatras as an ecliptic scale; but there is also other evidence of a special nature. (1) We have already quoted the Satapatha Brahmana and the Bodhayana Srauta Sûtra to the effect that the nakshatra Krittikâ does not move from the east, and this completely agrees with the notion of the nakshatras as an ecliptic scale. (2) There is an equally significant statement in the Suryaprajñapti where we are told explicitly that the stars move faster than the nakshatras. This Thibaut dismissed as incomprehensible, but it is a sufficiently reasonable statement of the phenomenon of precession, and can only mean that the nakshatra scale, which marked the equinoxes, gradually shifted with reference to the fixed stars. (3) One of the best-known astronomical statements in Hindu literature occurs in many of the Purâpas and tells us that the constellation of the Seven Rishis ( Ursa Major) revolves through the nakshatras. This statement was rather ridiculed by Whitney but there is little doubt that it is connected with precession; and, at least, it definitely indicates that the nakshatras and constellations were considered as very different matters; and it is explainable only on the hypothesis that the nakshatras formed a scale that gradually shifted with reference to the constellation of the Seven Rishis. (4) We have already pointed out that the Vedanga conception of the nakshatras was a scale divided into 27 equal parts, and this conception with slight modifications has persisted until the present time; but (5) from about A.D. 450 this nakshatra scale was largely replaced by the scale of signs of the zodiac; aad these signs of the zodiac were not used in India for ecliptic scale divisions only, but for the divisions of any circle-thus further divorcing the signs and the constellations.
Vedic Index, i, 415.
7 The Suryaprajñapti division into It gives 13° 11' to each of 15 nakshatras, 6° to Abhijit it gives the remainder or 4° 13′.
JASB., 1880, p. 185.
JAOS., 1858, p. 364. 28 parts is based upon the sidereal month of 27 dayss 35' to each of six, 19° 46' to each of six others, while