Indian Antiquary Vol 41

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

Page 51

MARCE, 1912.
THE VEDIC CALENDAR
I think that the symbolical acts of cutting off the branch of a Palasa tree, and of separating the calves from the cows for the purpose of milking them during the night, and of destroying the evil Bpirits and enemies, as described in the very beginning of the Black Yajurveda, are also meant to signify the passing off of an intercalated period. Among the Chinese the twelve months of the year are called the twelve branches; and it is probable that the Vedic poets, too, called the months, whether ordinary or intercalary, by the name of śdkhás or branches. As already pointed out in the above pages and also in my essay entitled Gavám-Ayana : the Vedic Era, published in 1908, the test cow' is a name given to the New Year's Day as well as to the intercalated day; an bercalves' must iherefore mean the days of the subsequent year or cycle of years. We bave akseen how the symbolical act of burning the evil spirits and enemies signifies the passing off of an intercalated period. Accordingly the first two Anuvdks or paragraphs of the first kdnda of the B!: Yajurvéda may possibly refer to the cutting off of an intercalated branch or month, and to the separation of some New Years' Days or bissextile intercalated days, termed cows,' from their calve or the consecutive days of the subsequent year or cycle of years. In order to see whether the pasage givos this meaning or not, it is necessary that we should examine the interpretation given to. by Bhatta Bhaskara and other commentators. The passage runs as follows, i. 1.1:. इषे लोर्जे त्वा वायवस्थोपायवस्स्थ देवी वस्सविता प्रार्पयतु श्रेष्ठपतमाय कर्मणे भाप्यायध्वमानिया देवभागमुस्ततीः पयस्वतीरनमीवा अयक्ष्मा मावस्स्तेन इशत माघशंसः रुद्रस्य हेतिः परि यो वृण ध्रुवा भस्मिन्गोपती स्थान बहीर्यजमानस्य पशून्पाहि (1). य झस्य घोषिदसि प्रत्युष्टं रक्षः प्रत्युंटा अरातयः,
In accordance with the commentary of Bhatta Bhaskara and others on these passages, they cou le translated thus -
O Branch, thou art for isha [food), and for úrja (strength]; O calves, ye are swift runners like the wind, and ye come back again ; O cows, may the bright sua lead you for the purpose of our liest sacrificial rites; O inriolable cows, yield the share of the gods, ye who are possessed of strength, milk, and calves, and who are free from consumption and other diseases. May the thief have no power over you; may the slaughterer not touch you; may the thunderbolt of Rudra quit you on all sides ; be ye firm in the possession of this cowherd; preserve ye the numerous cows of the sacrificer; O sword, thou art the announcer of the sacrifice; burnt is the devil and burnt are the enemies."
Here the sacrificer is required to repeat the first four words of the original, and to cut off a branch of the Palisa tree for use in the sacrifice. The next four words are addressed to calves which are to be separated from their mothers, the cows. The following sentences up to burnt is the revil' are addressed to cows. Then comes the symbolical act of burning the evil spirits and enemies. These symbolical acts, which are usually performed by sacrificers in connection with all full-moon and new-moon sacrifices,' appear to render the explanation of the commentators plausible and perhaps representative of the only meaning intended by the poet. But when we try to make the detached thoughts and acts into a connected whole, we feel the difficulty. So long as we accept the interpretation of the commentators, we fail to understand the aim of the poet who gave expressions to these thoughts and devised the symbolic acts: the thoughts and acts are BO disconnected that they appear to have originated in some disordered mind. But if we take the
branch' in the sense of an intercalated month which is to be placed between the months of Isha and Crja (Ásvina and Kârttika) and is to be symbolically burnt as an evil spirit and an enemy, and if we take the calves as the days of an ordinary year whose wife is elsewhere said to be the eight: day of the dark half of the month of Magha and is called a cow bringing forth the days or calves of the next year, the disjointed thoughts arrange themselves into a connected whole. It is probal le that it was the lack of proper astronomical terms to designate the various parts of the year that led the Vedic poets to talk of them in terms of the branches of a tree and cows and calves.