Page 116 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

ORION AND HIS BELT 103

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account why the Agra)'!P!efh(is originally celebrated at thebeginn-
ing of Vasanta and the end of Vartha as stated by Ashvalayana.
The Agrahay~ of Amara is thus traceable to i'graytv;~t of the
Vedic works; and perhaps it was the initial long vowel in the latter
that might have been retained in the later form.
It.may, however, be asked if there is any evidence to show
t.bat igraytv;JQ was uSed to denote a star in the Vedic works. That
Amara, and long before him Pil.lini understood Agrtzh4jtv:Ji,
if not Agrahaytv;JQ, to mean the Nak~hatra of MJigashirsas
is undoubted; and I think we miaht fairly infer th~refrom that
the meaning given by these writers must have com9 down to_ them
traditionally. Every ayana must. begin with some .Nakthatra and
it is quite natural to suppose that Agraytv;~a must haV.e gradually
come to denote the . .star that rose with the first ayana. But ii have
not been able to find out a passage where Agray~a is used in
the Vedic works to expressly denote the constellation of Mriga-
shiras. I may however, refer to the Taittirtya Sarp.hita (vi. 4. u. 1.)
wherein the vessels ( grahas ) used for sacrificial purposes are
mentioned as beginning with "' Agraytv;JQ and considering the fact
that two other vessels are named, as the words thems~lves denote,
after the planet Shukra and Manthin, • we might $Uppose that
Agra)'QI}Q came to be included in the list, not as the name of a
deity, for it was not such a name, but as denoting the star which
commenced the yea'r, or the half-year. The w.ord graha which in
the sacrificial literature denotes vessel has been used in later
astronomical works to denote the planets, the number of which,
including the sun and the moon, is fixed at nine, the same as the
number of vessels used for sacrificial purposes. It is not, therefore,
improbable that lgrahO.ytliJf or AgrahayaiJD of the later writers was
a transformation of Agraytv;~t of and that Mrigashiras, was so
called in old time for sacrificial purposes. When the Agra)'QlJe'h~is
lost their primary meaning, Agraytv;JQ or AgrahaytliJa naturally
came to be used more to denote the month when the sacrifice
was performed than the Nak~hatra at the beginriing of the ayana
thus giving rise to the speculations previously disccussed. But in
• See i1!{ra Chap. VII. In Taitt. Sal'!'. iii. I. 6. 3 the vessel is
described as the vessel of Arr••J~a, thus shewing that the vessel was
named after AgraYfl'l!ll, which must therefore be either the name of a
Nakshatra.