Orion, or, Researches into the antiquity of the Vedas / by Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

  • Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Date:
1916
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Orion, or, Researches into the antiquity of the Vedas / by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and also the next previous to the Ekashtaka, which is the wife of the year and which falls in the cold season, in the last season, i. e., Shishira [or when water is noi delightful] and after the sun has passed through the winter solstice* It must also be remembered that the Phalguni and the Chitra full-moon are to be excluded. Jaimini, therefore, concludes that this full-moon cannot be any other than the one falling in the month of Magha, and his conclusion has been adopted by all the Mimansakas. We can now under¬ stand why Laugakshi, quoted by Somakara, states that “they sacrifice to the year four days before the full-moon in Magha.”* If Jaimini's interpretation of this passage is correct, we may, so far as our present inquiry is concerned, deduce the following conclusions from it—(1) That in the days of the Taittiriya Sanliita the winter solstice occurred before the eighth clay of the dark half of Magha, which again was a month of the cold season. Whether the solstitial day fell on the Magha full-moon is not so certain, though it may be taken as fairly implied. For the Ekashtaka was abandoned bacause it occurred in the “reversed” period of the year and it is quite natural to suppose that the priests in choosing a second day would try to remove as many of the objections to the Ekashtaka as they could. In other words, they would not select a day in the “reversed” period of the year, nor one in the last season; The fact that a day before the full-moon in Magha was selected is, therefore, a clear indication of the solstice occurring on that day, while their anxiety to utilise the Ekashtaka fully accounts for the selection of the fourth in preference to any other day before the full-moon. I may also remark that throughout the
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