Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 34

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[FEBRUARY, 1912.
For reasons to be pointed out further on, I presume that the four worlds referred to in the above verse are four solar years, and that the twenty-one cows or mornings are the intercalazy days made up of the four times five days and a quarter which is the difference between a Savana and a solar year. I do not, however, contend that it is clear from the above passages themselves that the twenty-one cows or mornings are intended to signify so many intercalary days and intercalary days alone. Still, I believe that scholars will agree with me in holding that, so far as the beginning of the year on the Ekashtaka day is concerned, these passages leave no doubt whatever. The Ekashtaka day is clearly a lunar day; and the year that was practically observed by the Vedic poets was the Savana year of 360 days. The number of days from one Ekashtaka or the eighth day of the dark half of the month of Magha to the next Ekáshtaka is 354. Accordingly, if the Savana year of 360 days, having once begun (on the Ekashtaka day, is to begin again, on that same day, there must necessarily be an adjustment of the difference of six days between the lunar and the Savana years by the addition of one month to the lunar year in every five years. It instead of the Savana year, they adopted a solar or a sidereal year, even then they must necessarily bave adjusted the respective differences between the lunar and the solar or between the lunar and the sidereal years by intercalation in the form of days or months. Accordingly, we find clear references to a thirteenth intercalary month not only in the Yajurvéda and the Atharvavéda, but also in the Rigveda. The Rigveda i, 25, 8, thus alludes to the intercalary month :
वेद मासो धृतवतो द्वादश प्रजावतः । वेदा य उपजायते ।। "He, who, accepting the rites (dedicated to him), knows the twelve months and their productions, and that which is supplementarily engendered."
In his translation of the Rigvela, Professor H. L. Wilson remarked as follows:
"TT Tora, who knows what is upa, additionally or subordinately produced. The expression is obscure, but in connection with the preceding, AETTET, who knows the twelve months, we cannot doubt the correctness of the scholiast's conclusion, that the thirteenth, the supplementary or intercalary month of the Hindu luni-solar year, is alluded to; that
the thirteenth or additional month which is produced of itself, in connection with the year," T TISATESTAT UTCA FÀTga'." The passage is important, as indicating the concurrent use of lunar and solar years at this period and the method of adjusting the one to the other."
Notwithstanding Sayana's interpretation of the word urajáyate in the sense of a supplementary month,' it is doubtful whether the word indicates a complete intercalary month or an intercalated period less than a month: for we shall presently see that before the custom of adjusting the lunar and the solar reckoning by the addition of a complete month came into vogue, the usual practice was to adjust them by adding as many days as formed the difference between any two kinds of years or sets of years. Still, it is certain that some sort of intercalation, either in the form of a month or in the form of a period less than a month, is what is implied in the above verse of the Rigveda. But coming to the Atharvavéla, we see therein a clear description of a thirteenth intercalary month :
भहोरात्रैर्विमितं त्रिंशदंगं त्रयोदशं मासं यो निमिमीते।
तस्य देवस्य कुस्यैतदागो य एवं विद्वांसं ब्राह्मणं जिनाति.॥ "He who measures the thirteenth month, fabricated of days and nights, baving thirty members-against that god, angered, is this offence." A. V., XIII, 3. 8.
सनिस्रसो नामासि त्रयोदशो मास इंद्रस्य गृहः ।