Indian Antiquary Vol 42

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

Page 23

JANUARY, 1913.)
THE ADITYAS
THE ADITYAS. BY E. SHAMASASTRY, B.A., M.R.A.S., BANGALORE,
(Continued from Vol. XLI. p. 296.) From what has been said above, it is clear that the three good twin sons brought forth by Aditi in consequence of her eating the remnant must necessarily be the three pairs of intercalary months occurring in the course of three luni-solar cycles of five years each in consequence of the difference, or remnant as it is called, of twelve days between a lunar and a sidereal year. There is a sufficient clue in the passage itself to interpret the story of Aditi in this way. We are told in the passage that the sacrificer should omit or intercalate a year, and that then he should set up the sacred fire anew. From the Maitrdyansya Samhita I. 10, 7, we also know that the rite of setting up or churning the fire anew was performed at the end of the third intercalary period of four months at the close of thirty years. We are told in the above passage that the sacrificer had to omit twelve days every year and that the embryos developed in the course of the intercalated) year were born. In the parlance of the Vedic poets, embryos or children are, as already pointed out, days of the year, oither ordinary or intercalary. If, then, the twelve days at the end of the gidereal year are, as implied in the above passage, the embryo, which, when developed and born, the sacri acer is called to set up, it follows that the remnant which gave to Aditi a pair of sons is the same period of twelve days, giving rise to two interoalary months in the course of five lani-solar years. If this meaning is true, it follows that the three other pairs of Aditi's sons must also be three other pairs of intercalary months, occurring in the course of fifteen luni-solar years. If this is true, it is clear that what are called Dhâta, Aryamâ, Mitra, Varuņa, Ama, and Bhaga, are the gods of the six intercalary months occurring in the course of fifteen luni-solar years. The only riddle that remains to be solved in the above passage is that connected with the birth of the fourth pair of sons, of whom one, called Indra, is said to have been fully born while the other, called Martânda, is said to have been half-born. If we paraphrase the Vedic language in our modern language, and say that three pairs of intercalary months and a seventh one were full and the eighth intercalary month was a broken month, we know where to seek for an explanation of this break. We know that the only year which can keep the seasons, especially the commencement of the much-desired rainy season, in their usual position, is the solar year of 3657 days, but not the sidereal year of 366 days, which is evidently too long by three-fourths of a day. This excess will amount to ? x 20 == 15 days in the course of four cycles of five years each or in twenty sidereal years. Accordingly if this greater cycle of twenty years, with eight or rather seven and a half intercalary months to be intercalated at the end of the twenty years, had begun to be observed, as the Vedic poets seem to have done, then the beginning of the year would fall back, not by eight months, as the Vedic poets first supposed, but by seven and a half months; or in other words the Hindu lunar year which begins with Chaitralo would then fall back and begin at the middle of Srâvaņa of the rainy season, instead of at the end of Ashâdha, as the poets sem to have expected it. How the poets found out the error, is a question with which we are not concerned here. It may, however, be suggested that the existence side by side of a different school of priestly astronomers who observed the solar year of 3657 daysli may have led them to detect the break in the eighth intercalary month. Whatever may be the way in which they detected the break or error, the only explanation that can possibly be given for the half-birth of the eighth intercalary month or son, seems to be the one I have given above. This theory of intercalary months explains the
** Bat it is only in the latter oalendar that we have a Chaitradi year. In the Vodic period the year and the cyole began with Magha.-J. F. F.
11 Seo Ante., Vol. XLI, p. 272.