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DECEMBER, 1895.)
DATE OF THE EARLIEST VEDIC PERIOD.
367
The next chapter (III.) is entitled “The Krittikas." Over its main thesis — namely, that in the earlier time the asterismal system began with Ksittikê (Pleiades) instead of Ağvini (Aries) - we need not linger; that is conceded by everyone, and has been suff:ciently set forth above : together with, it is believed, its true explanation. The (as concerns this point) crucial question respecting the origin of the systein Mr. Tilak barely mentions in his Introduction (p. 6 ff.), declining to enter into any discussion of it: and, from his point of view, not without reason; for if he is in a position, as he claims, to prove that India had a yet earlier system beginning with Mrigasiras (Orion), he has demonstrated the Hindu origin, in spite of all that has been said and can be said against it. A considerable part of the chapter is taken up with a full quotation, accompanied by translation and discussion, of two parallel passages from the Taittiriya and the Kaushitaki Brahmanas, respecting the times of consecration for the year-sat tra, Four different times are prescribed in succession: the last quarter in the month Magha, the full-moon of the following month Phâlguna, the full-moon of the next succeeding month Chaitra, and four days before the full-moon (i.e., doubtless, of Chaitra : but some native authorities regard MAgha as intended : see Weber, Nakshatras, ii. 343); objections are raised to the convenience of the first two, and the others (virtually one) are approved as acceptable. If, now, this sattra were, as Mr. Tilak assumes and fully believes, a counterpart of the year, established in primeval times on competent astronomical knowledge, for the purpose of keeping the calendar straight, and accordingly adapted precisely to the movements of the sun ; and if its vish uvant or central day (with 180 days of ceremonies in a certain order preceding it, and 180 days of the same in a reverse order following it), were attached necessarily to an equinox, because the word vishuvant implies an equal division of the day between light and darkness; and then if there were no way of explaining the series of alternative beginnings excepting by recognizing two of them as conservative traditions from times that fitted these astronomical conditions - then, and only then, we could use them as sufficient data, inferring from them the positions of the equinox, and hence the epochs, at which they were successively established. But all these necessary conditions appear to be wanting. Weber, in his essays on the Nakshatras (ii. 341 ff.), quotes and expounds the same Brahmana passages in full. He demonstrates yet other allowed seasons for beginning the year-sattra, out of the KdushitakiBrahmana itself and out of the Satras. So far as any preference is shewn in connection with the incidence of the vishuvant-day, it is for the solstice instead of the equinox And the texts which set forth the different dates side by side are plainly unaware of any deeper reason for the choice of one instead of another. In short, there is nothing to be fairly inferred from these quoted passages except that considerable diversity prevailed in practice, and was allowed, as regards the time for commencing the sattra, and that the element of astronomical exactness did not enter into the case at all. How, indeed, should it do so, when the date was attached to any one of the constantly shifting lanar months? No fixation expressed in such terms could ever be accurate two years in succession. If there had been among the primitive Indo-Europeans, or among the earliest Hindus, science enough to establish such a rite by a certain sidereal position of the sun, there would have been enough to keep it there, without transference to an ever oscillating date.
The next chapter is called " Agrahayana;" and is devoted to a learned and ingenious argument to prove that, as the word agrahayana means beginning of the year, and is recognized As a name for the month Margabirsha (with the moon full near Orion), that month must have been at one time regarded as first of the twelve (or thirteen). This may be freely granted, without at all implying that the asterism Mrigasiras (Orion's head) was ever first of the asterismal series, and for the reason that it lay nearest to the vernal equinox. The extended and intricate discussions into which Mr. Tilak enters as to the relation of agrahayana and its' derivatives, agrahdyani, etc., as laid down and defended by various native lexicographers and grammariang, are rather lost upon us, who value far more highly a few instances of actual and natural use in older works than the learned and artificial lucubrations of comparatively modern Hindu
