Indian Antiquary Vol 48

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

Page 101

JUNE, 19191
THE LUXAR ZODIAC IN THE BRAHMAVAS
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latest eclition of the Encyclopædia Britannicu (art: "Zodiac') could only write: "The alternative view, advocated by Weber, that the lunar zodiac was primitively Chaldæan, rests on a very shadlowy foundation. Eupbratean exploration has so far brought to light no traces of ecliptical partition by the moon's diurnal motion, unless, indeed, zodiacal associations be claimed for a set of twenty-eight deprecatory formulæ against evil spirits inscribed on a Ninevite tablet."
In the Brahmana literature, including the Taittiriya and other later Sanhitas, we find only the lunar ecliptio, with the twenty-seven 5 nakshatras with the Kritlikas heading the list and no mention of mesha, Vrishabha, etc., as the signs or representations of a zodiac. On the other hand, no reference has been found in Babylonian inscriptions to the division of the zodiac based on the diurnal revolution of the moon among these asterisms. There is not a single point in common between the Babylonian zodiac, so far as it is known and the Indian ecliptic, as it is found in the Brålomanas. The Brahmaņa literature (Vaj: Sam. XXX. 10: Taitt: Br. III. 4-4-1) refers to observers of stars (nakshatra-darías) as a profession; and yet it is assumed that the Brahmavadins must have borrowed the elementary scheme from some country which shows no traces of such a scheme.
Professor A. A. Macdonell, in his review of my dissertation on the age of the Brahmanas, which was intended for the Oriental Congress which was to have assembled at Oxford in 1915, wrote to me, "The origin of the Nakshatras is an unsolved mystery and so long as this is the case conjectures based on their original signification must remain without value as pruof of any theory."
We find the lunar ecliptic of 27 nakshatras referred to in several places in the later Sanhitas and the Brahmaņas. We find a knowledge of this lunar ecliptic in the marriage hymn of the Rigveda (X. 85-13) where the expressions aghâsu and arjunyoh mean "on the days when the moon is in conjunction with these asterisms.” As the Encyclopædia Brilannica (art: "Zodiac", 11th edition) says of the Indian Zodiac:""We find nowhere else a well authenticated zodiacal sequence corresponding to so early a date." Why then should ono seek for the origin of the nakshatras in any other ancient country, where no traces of the same have been found after yaars of research. You find it there in ancient Indian literature and you do not find the like of it in any other conntry at so early a period. It is again it scheme which could have been easily worked out in the land of the Indus, by a people with as much knowledge of civilised life as is exhibited in the Rigveda. Would it be fair or competent criticism, then, to say that the ancient Indians must have borrowed the simple scheme from some country not definitely known (from Babylonia or China), at some unknown or indeterminable period, simply because a Biot, a Weber, or a Whitney had started theories which half a century of further research has left where they stood when they were started ?
Scientific criticism is concerned with evidence and so long as no evidence is forthcoming. if not to prove, at least to lend some amount of probability to the foreign origin of the Nakshatra ecliptic, it will not be fair to reject as valueless any legitimate inference that may be drawn from the statements about the nakshatras that we may find in the Brahmanas; leaving aside the conjeetures based on the etymological significance of the names of the naicshatras, such as those indulged in by Bentley for instance, which have of course little value as evidence.
5 Only 27 are given in the earlier list in Tritt. San. IV, 9, 10, 1-3 and in Thitt: Br. I. 5-1. Taitt. Br. I. 5-2 adds that in addition to the 27 nakshatra, mentioned in the previous anuváka, there is another called abhijit (a Lyræ) which should be looked for in the sky between the uttara) ashadhas an
rond and that the Deves conquered the Asuras under this nakshatra and therefore expeditions should set out under it. This nakshaira is accordingly included in the nakshatreshți in Taitt. Br. III. 2-1-6, notwithstanding its remoteness from the coliptio.