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DECEMBER, 1895.1 DATE OF THE EARLIEST VEDIC PERIOD
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ON A RECENT ATTEMPT. BY JACOBI AND TILAK, TO DETERMINE ON ASTRONOMICAL EVIDENCE THE DATE OF THE EARLIEST
VEDIC PERIOD AS 4000 B. C. BY THE LATE PROFESSOR W. D. WHITNEY, OF YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN.1 A Ta meeting of the American Oriental] Society nearly nine years ago (October 1885), A I criticised and condemned Ludwig's attempt to fix the date of the Rig Veda by alleged eclipses. The distinguished French Indianist, Bergaigne, passed the same judgment upon it at nearly the same time (Journ Asiat, 1886). Although the two criticisms provoked from Ludwig & violent and most uncourteous retort (see his Rig-Véda, Vol. VI. p. x.), bis argament appears to have fallen into the oblivion which alone it merited.
Within the past year, a similar attempt has been made, independently of one another, by two scholars, one German (Prof. Jacobi, of Bonn, in the Festgruss an Roth, 1893, pp. 68-74) and one Hindu (Bal Gangadhar Tilak, The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas, Bombay, 1893, pp. ix., 229, 16mo.), working along the same general line, and coming to an accordant conclusion : namely, that the oldest period called Vedic goes back to or into the fifth millennium before Christ-an antiquity as remote as that long recognized for Egyptian civilization, and recently claimed, on good grounds, for that of Mesopotamia also. This is a start. ling novelty; as such, however, we have no right to reject it offhand; but we are justified in demanding pretty distinct and unequivocal evidence in its favor, before we yield it our credence.
The general argument may be very briefly stated thus: The Hindus (as also the Chinese, the Persians, and the Arabs) had a lunar zodiac of 27 (or 28) asterisms, rudely marking the successive days of the moon's circuit of the heavens. Since the establishment of the Hindu science of astronomy, under Greek influence and instruction, in the first centuries of our era, the series of asterisms has been made to begin with Asvini (in the head of Aries), for the acknowledged reason that that group was nearest the vernal equinox at the time. But earlier; in the Brúkmanas, etc., the series always began with Krittikå (Pleiades), presumably because, owing to the precession, that group had been nearest to the equinox: and this was the case some two thousand and more years before Christ. Some two thousand and more years yet earlier, the equinox was near to Mrigasiras, or the head of Orion ; if, therefore, it can be made to appear that the Hindus once began their asterismal system with Mrigasiras, and because of the latter's coincidence with the equinox, we shall conclude that they must have done so more than four thousand years before Christ. Bat the same sum can be worked in terms of months. The Hindu months are lunar, and are named sidereally, each from the asterism in or adjacent to which the moon is full in the given month : bat the seasons follow the equinoxes and solstices d hence the rainy season, for example, began about a month earlier when Aśvini (Aries) was at the equinox than when Krittikê (Pleiades) was there, and about two months earlier than when Mrigasiras (Orion) was there ; and if it can be shewn that the year always commence with a fixed season, and has twice changed its initial month, Mrigaģiras (Orion) will thus also be proved to have been at the equinox at a recorded or remembered period in Hindu
i [I have printed this article from the Proceedings of the American Oriental Society for March, 1894, with the full approval of Dr. Bühler because of the articles already published in this Journal on these subjects. I have done so that scholars in India, who may not otherwise hear of them, may be in possession of this great Oriontalist's views of these questions, though stated with his characteristio vigor and disregard of the feelings of others. - ED.)
His language is a follows: "Anything more completely the opposite (Widerspil) of criticism than the judgment which our, in all points well-considered, discussion of the subject has met with at the hands of Whitney and Bergaigne is not to be conceived. It (the discussion ) is refuted in no single point; the judges do not stand upon the ground of criticism, but upon that of personal and wholly unjustified opposition.” Perhaps nothing different froin this was to be expected from one who could propose such a theory: finding nothing to say in its defence, he was obliged to abuso his critics and impute to them personal motivos.
