The Life of Lokamanya Tilak/Appendix A
APPENDIX A
THE ORION
(Appendix A and B will give the reader an idea of the principal arguments advanced by Mr. Tilak in the Orion and the Arctic Home in the Vedas to establish his theories. The Gita-Rahasya being comparatively a recent production is too well-known to require any summary.)
Oriental scholars have advanced vague and uncertain conjectures about the age and character of the Vedas. Prof. Max Muller has divided the Vedic literature into four arbitrary periods, the Chhandas, Mantra, Brahmana and Sutra and by assigning two hundred years for each period he arrives at about 1200 B.C. as the latest date at which the Vedic hymns have been composed. As opposed to this linguistic method of ascertaining the age of the Vedas, there is the astronomical method which though condemned by European scholars as inaccurate and conjectural, can, if properly applied, lead us to good results. The Vedas, the Brahmanas and the Sutras contain numerous allusions and references to astronomical facts. There are several sacrificial hymns in the Rig-veda. Now, no sacrificial system could be developed without the knowledge of months, seasons and the year. It appears that the Vedic Rishis kept up their calender by performing the corresponding round of sacrifices on the sacred fire that constantly burnt in their houses; and as they were not only the sacrificers of the community but were also its time-keepers, these two functions appear to have blended into one by assigning the commencement of the several sacrifices to the leading days of the year on the natural ground that if the sacrifices were to be performed, they must be performed on the principal days of the year. Samvatsara and Yajna therefore came to be regarded as convertible terms.
Let us now examine the principal parts of the year alias the sacrifice. The Savana or the civil day, as its etymology shows, was selected as the natural unit of time. 30 such days made a month and 12 such months or 360 Savana days made a year. Now, a month of 30 civil or savana days cannot correspond with a lunar synodical month and so a day in some of the Savana months was required to be omitted to secure the concurrence of the civil and lunar months. The year of 360 Savana days was thus practically reduced to a lunar year of 354 civil days or 360 tithis. But a further correction was necessary to adjust the lunar with the solar reckoning of time. The commencement of the cycle of the seasons was, therefore, the only means to correct the calender and the ancient Aryans hit upon the device of the intercalary days or month for the purpose.
It appears that the early Vedic priests were ignorant of the motion of the equinoxes. The early Aryans must have determined the position of the sun in the ecliptic by observing, every morning, the fixed star nearest to it. Under such system, the year would naturally be over when the sun returned to the same fixed star. The solar year, therefore, mentioned in the Vedic works, must be considered as sidereal and not tropical. The difference between the sidereal and the tropical year is 20.4 minutes which causes the seasons to fall back nearly one lunar month in about every two thousand years. When these changes came to be noticed for the first time they caused surprise and were regarded as foretelling some great calamity.
Another important point, relevent to our purpose is when the year commenced. The Vedanga-Jyotish makes the year (and Uttarayana) commence with the winter-solstice. But a closer examination shows that the winter-solstice could not have been the original beginning of the annual sacrifices (and therefore of the year). The middle day of the annual Satra is called the Vishnuvan day and as Vishnuvan literally means the time when day and night are of equal length, if we suppose the year to have commenced with the winter solstice, the Vishnuvan or the equinoctial day could never have been its central day. If Vishnuvan was the central day of the year, the year must have once commenced with the equinoxes. We may, therefore, take Uttarayana to mean "the passage of the sun into the northern hemisphere, i.e., to the north of the equator; and thus we can say that the Uttarayana and the year must have commenced with the Vernal equinox. While describing the Devayana and Pitriyana, the Shatapatha Brahmana (ii-i-3-3). lays it down in distinct terms that Vasanta, Grishma and Varsha were the seasons of the Devas. It is impossible therefore to maintain that the Devayana or the Uttarayana -ever commenced with the winter-solstice, for in neither hemisphere the winter-solstice marks the beginning of the spring, the first of the Deva seasons. It is difhcult to definitely ascertain the time when the commencement of the year was changed from the vernal equinox to the winter solstice. When this change was made, Uttarayana must have gradually come to denote the first half of the new year, i.e., the period from the winter to the summer solstice especially as the word was capable of being understood as "turning towards the North from the Southern-most point."
All our present calenders are prepared on the supposition that the Vernal equinox still coincides with the end of Revati and our enumeration of the Nakshatras begins with Ashvini, though the equinox has now receded about 18° from Revati. This position of the Vernal equinox was true at about 490 A.D. when probably the present system was introduced. Let us now see if we can trace back the position of the Vernal equinox amongst the fixed circle of stars. From Varahamihira, we know that before the Hindus began to make their measurements from the Vernal equinox in Revati, there existed a system in which the year commenced with the winter solstice in the month of Magha and the Vernal equinox was in the last quarter of Bharani or the beginning of the Krittikas. The Vedanga- Jyotish, the oldest astronomical work in Sanskrit, gives the following positions of the solstice and the equinoxes:—
- (i) The winter solstice in the beginning of Shravishtha (divisional).
- (2) The Vernal equinox in 10° of Bharani.
- (3) The summer solstice in the middle of Ashlesha,
- (4) The autumnal equinox in 3° 20' of Vishakha.
From these data, astronomers have calculated that the solstitial colure occupied the above position between 1269 B.C. to 1181 B.C. There are many passages in the Taittiriya Samhita and the Taittiriya Brahmana where the Krittikas occupy the first place in the list of the Nakshatras. We must, therefore, presume that the Vernal equinox coincided with the Krittikas when the Taittiriya vSamhita was compiled. The Taittiriya Brahmana (i 5, 2, 7) says that the Nakshatras are the houses of Gods and that the Nakshatras of the Devas begin with the Krittikas. The Shatapatha Brahmana expressly states that the Sun was to be considered as moving amongst and protecting the Devas, when he turned to the North, in the three seasons, of spring, summer and rains. This, therefore, at once fixes the position of the Krittikas at the beginning of the Devayana or the vernal equinox at the time when these works were compiled. The Taittiriya Samhita expressly states that the winter solstice fell in Magha. From all these, we conclude that the Krittikas coincided with the Vernal equinox when the Taittiriya Samhita was compiled (2350 B.C.)
The passage in the Taittiriya Samhita which states that the winter solstice fell in Magha also refers to the Phalguni full-moon and the Chitra full-moon as the first days of the year. Now as evidently there can't be real beginnings of the year at an interval of one month each, the passage must be understood as recording a tradition about these two full-moon days being once considered as the first days of the year. If the year commenced with winter solstice with the Phalguni full-moon, the Vernal equinox must have been in the Mrigashiras (Orion) The word Agrhaayani (Syn. for Mrigashiras), suggests the same tale. With the Vernal equinox near the asterism of Mrigashiras, the autumnal equinox would be in Mula which was so called because its acronycal rising marked the commencement of the year. Again with the winter solstice occuring on the Phalguni full-moon day, the summer solstice fell on the Bhadrapadi full moon so that the dark half of Bhadrapada was the first fortnight in the Pitriyana, understood as commencing on the summer solstice. On no other hypothesis can the dedication of the dark half of Bhadrapada to the Pitris be satisfactorily explained.
When the Vernal equinox was in Orion it was the beginning of the Devayana and as the constellation is remarkable for its brilliancy and attractiveness, the ancient Aryans may have been naturally influenced not merely to connect their old traditions with it but also to develop them on the same lines. Thus the Devayana and the Pitriyana, as representing the two hemispheres must be joined and the Vernal and the autumnal equinoxes became the natural points of union between the regions of Gods and Yama. The equinoxes were in fact the gates, of heaven and as such it was natural to suppose that they were watched by dogs (Canis Major and Canis Minor). In the later Indian literature we are told that the souls of the deceased have to cross a stream before they reach the region of Yama which we can easily identify with the Milky Way which could then have been appropriately described as separating the regions of Gods and Yama, the Devayana and the Pritriyana or the Northern and the Southern hemisphere. Later, it is actually called the celestial river and we are further told that the land of the blessed is to be reached by "the celestial ship with a good rudder." We can satisfactorily account for these legends by supposing that the Vernal equinox was near the Dog-star in those days just near the Milky Way.
There is another set of traditions which can be similarly explained on the supposition with which we have started, viz., the Vernal equinox was then in Orion. The heliacal rising of the constellation at the beginning of the year marked the revival of nature at the commencement of spring and the asterism may thus be said to represent all these milder influences which in later mythology were fully embodied in the conception of Vishnu. But the case was completely reversed if we take the acronycal rising of the same. It was at the autumnal equinox that the Dog-star rose at the beginning of night and though strictly speaking it marked the end of Varsha,yet the portion of the heaven wherein the constellation is situated could have been easily regarded as the battle-ground of Indra and Vritra, who fought in those days and also as the stage on which the terrible Rudra made his appearance. On this same hypothesis we can explain how Vritra came to be stationed at the gates of hell. Indra cut oH the head of Vritra or Namuchi in the form of a Mriga and this at once suggests whether that head is not the same as that of Prajapati cut off by Rudra (Ardra or Sirius). The foamy weapon with which Indra killed Namuchi is nothing but a reference tot he Milky Way, The attributes of Rudra, chasing of the antelope, his bearing of the Ganges in his matted hair and fondness for the burning ground and appearance as a Kirata or hunter—all these can be accounted for by placing Rudra just below the Milky Way or the celestial Ganges at the gates of the Pitriyana and figured as a hunter. In Rig. X 192-2, Samvatsara or the year is said to rise out of the ocean, the place where Vritra was killed (Rig. X 68-12). Prajapati as represented by Orion may also be naturally supposed to commence the year when the Vernal equinox was in Orion. Rudra killed Prajapati (or Samavatsara or Yajna) at the beginning of the year and as Yajna also meant sacrifice, Rudra was later believed to have killed the sacrifice of Daksha. So then Vishnu, representing the happy times of Vasanta, Rudra presiding over storms and Prajapati, the deity of sacrifices— these three principal deities of the Hindu Mythology can be traced to and located in the part of heaven occupied by Orion when the Vernal equinox was there. Later writers have described this Trinity as represented by the three-headed Dattatraya, followed by the Vedas in the forms of dogs, and from what has been written above, there can be no diificulty in identifying this personified Trinity with Orion having three stars in the head and closely followed by the dog (canis) at its foot.
These and other traditions especially those of Ribhus and Vrishakapi strengthen the hypothesis of the traditional year-beginning on the Phalguni full moon. With the Phalguni full moon at the winter solstice, the Vernal equinox was in Mrigashiras; so with the Chitra full moon at the solstice, the Vernal equinox would be in Punarvasu. The presiding deity of Punarvasu is Aditi and we are told that Aditi had been blessed with a boon that all sacrifices must commence and end with her (Aitareya Brahmana 1-7 and the Taittiriya Samhita vi 1-5-1,). The story begins with the statement that the Sacrifice (the mysterious Sacrificial personage) went away from the Gods. The Gods were then unable to perform any further ceremonies, and did not know where it (the sacrifice) had gone to; and it was Aditi that helped them in this state, to find out the proper commencement of the sacrifice. This clearly means that before this time sacrifices were performed at random, but it was at this time resolved and fixed to commence them from Aditi. Aditi was thus the oldest and rst commencement of the sacrifice or the year. In the Vajasaneyi Samhita 4-19 Aditi is said to be Ubhayatah Shirshni "double-headed" and the commentators interpret it to mean that the two termini of the sacrifice which began and ended with Aditi, are the two heads here alluded to. These traditions are further corroborated by the sacrificial ceremonies. According to the sacrificial terminology, the 4th day before Vishnu-van or the central day of the yearly Satra is called the Abhijit day. Now if Abhijit day be supposed to be named after the Nakshtra of that name (i.e. when the Sun is in Abhijit) then the Vishnu van or the autumnal equinox must fall four days after the asterism of Abhijit; and it can be shown by astronomical calculation that with Aditi or Punarvasu at the Vernal equinox to commence the sacrifice, we nearly get at the same result.
Therefore, the oldest period in the Aryan civilisation may be called the Aditi or the pre-Orion period and we may roughly assign 6000—4000 B.C. as its limits. Then there was the Orion period roughly extending from 4000 B.C. to 2500 B.C. from the time when the Vernal equinox was in the asterism of Ardra to the time when it receded to the asterism of the Krittkias. The third or the Krittika period commences with the Vernal equinox in the asterism of the Krittikas and extends up to the period recorded in the Vedanga-Jyotisha, i.e., 2500 B.C. to 1400 B.C. and the fourth and last period of the old Sanskrit literature extends from 1400 B.C. to 500 B.C. or to the birth and rise of Buddhism which may be called the real-Pre Buddhistic period. It will thus be found that the antiquities of the Vedas can be traced up to a far remoter time than what Max Muller and other European scholars were willing to assign.