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96
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY,
[APRIL, 1895.
observed to take place in Phalgani. But these conclusions, if not supported by ample collateral evidence, are altogether precarious. With regard to the rule that study is to begin at Sravana full moon, I remark that that full moon marks the beginning of the rainy season for those who reckoned their first four monthly period from Chaitri-fullmoon. And that the members of certain schools began their studies another month later, may have been due to local causes connected with the climate of the place, or other circumstances which we cannot now ascertain. I certainly can see no sufficient reason for seeing in this isolated rule of some Grihya-sútras a reminiscence of a period as remote as 4000 B, C., and would rather have recourse to any explanation than this.
When remarking, above, that in Vedic literature the equinoxes are never mentioned and that hence in our chronological speculations we are not warranted in referring to them as probable starting points of the Vedic year, I said that I should revert later on to the fact of Ksittikas heading the oldest lists of the nakshatras. This fact has, it is well known, been generally understood to imply a recognition of the vernal equinox once having lain in Kpittikas. I, however, must state that for my part I have never been able to see anything like a valid reason for this conclusion. What has led to its universal adoption is, of course, the involuntary comparison of the older lists beginning with Kțittikâs with the later ones beginning with Asvini. That Asvini was made to head the series is doubtless due to the fact that, at the time when the system of Indian astronomy was cast into its modern shape, the beginning of Asvini coincided with the vernal equinox. But the importance then attached to a beginning with the vernal equinox was entirely due to foreign, Greek, influence, and the inference that, because the new list takes its departure from the equinox, the old one did so likewise is, if in a certain sense natural, yet without any sound foundation. Longitudes - or what may be considered as the equivalent of longitudes – were, as far as our information goes, measured in the pre-Hellenic period of Indian astronomy from the points of the solstices only; whether from the winter solstice, as in the Jyotisha Védángu, or from the summer-golstice, as in the Súryaprajñapti of the Jainas. And further, we have seen above that, in the period of the Bráhmanas at any rate, the equinoxes appear not to have been considered at all in connection with the seasons; the spring of the Brahmanas begins midway between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox.
Professor Tilak indeed, in his second chapter, argues that there are distinct traces of the oldest Indian year having been one beginning with the vernal equinox. His first argument is that the term ishrvat' means originally the day when night and day are equal'; that hence the central vishuvat-day of the year-sacrifices, such as the gavám-ayana, must have been one of the equinoxes, and hence the sacrifice must have begun at the other equinox: whence we may conclude that that equinox was viewed as the beginning of the year. But there is no authority for Tilak's interpretation of the word vishudat, which rather seems to mean that which belongs to both sides equally,' that which occupies the middle; ' so that the vishuvat-day is simply the central day of the sacrifice, wherever that day may fall. The Brahmaņas seem not to leave any doubt that this central day was originally meant to coincide with the summer solstice ; while subsequently, when the beginning of the sacrifice bad been moved forward to the beginning of spring, it, of course, coincided with about - the beginning of October. Later on only, in the technical language of astronomy, the term came to denote the equinoctial day.
Nor can I follow Prof. Tilak in his attempt to establish for the terms uttarúyana' and . dakshindyana' new meanings, according to which they would denote, not the periods during which the sun moves towards the north and towards the south, i. e., the periods intervening between the solstices (in which sense the two terms have hitherto been understood exclusively), but the terms during which the sun is towards the north or south' respectively, i. e., the terms intervening between the equinoxes when the sun is either to the north or to the south of the equator. These latter meanings might perhaps be assigned to the two words on etymological grounds, but in the whole of existing Sanskrit literature, from the eldest books downwards,
