Ancient calendars and constellationsPlunket, Emmeline M. (Emmeline Mary)
History
Ancient calendars and constellations
Plunket, Emmeline M. (Emmeline Mary)
Astronomy, Ancient; Calendar; Constellations
The Hindu year is a sidereal year. It is counted at present in most
parts of India from a fixed point on the ecliptic, not from a season.
It is a calendrical not a cosmic year. Only one apparently small change
in the method of counting the years would now require to be made, and
again the Aswins might be hymned by the Hindus as the “wondrous,” and
“not untruthful,” _stars_, marking by their heliacal rising a new
year’s festival--a festival to be held on the 15th, or full moon’s day.
The Hindu year is now counted from the new moon immediately _preceding_
the sun’s arrival at the initial point of the lunar Zodiac. The first
of Chaitra (the first of the light half of Chaitra) never falls later
than the 12th of April, and may arrive a month earlier. If the year
were to be counted from the same initial point, but from the first new
moon _following_ instead of that _preceding_ the sun’s arrival at that
point, there would be the difference of a whole month in the range of
the month Chaitra. The first day of its bright half would then never
arrive before the 12th of April, and might fall a month later.
For the interpretation of the Vedic hymns to the Aswins I would make
the provisional suggestion, that when these hymns were composed, the
year was so counted from the new moon _following_ and not from that
_preceding_ the arrival of the sun at “the end of Revatî and the
beginning of Açvinî.” In support of this provisional theory, let us
first read the summing up of the Aswinī myths, and of the difficulties
and uncertainties surrounding them, according to the present modes
of explanation; and then let us consider the astronomic method of
interpretation above proposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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