Page 166 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

CONCLUSION 151
Orion is now no longer a hunter of unknown parentage, we need
not also indulge in uncertain speculations about the foamy weapon
with which Indra killed his enemy, or how the four-eyed dogs came
to be stationed at the 'chinvat Bridge, or why the ~ibhus are said
to be awakened by a dog at the end of the year.
A~.tronomically the matter is as simple as it cou'd be. All
our measurements of time are directly based upon the changes
in the positions of heavenly bodies. But there is no measurement
of time, at present determined, which is longer than the period
during which the equinoxes complete their revolution in the
ecliptic. It is; therefore, the best measurement of time for deter:-
mining the periods of antiquity, onl)' if we have reliable records
about the position of heavenly bodies in early days. F~rt\ulately,
such records of the time, when the Hellenic, the Iranian and the
Indian Aryans lived together, have been preserved for us in the
~igveda, and with the help of the Greek and Parsi traditions we
can now decipher these records inscribed on the specially cultivated
memory of the Indian Aryans. Commencing with the passages
in the Taittiriya SaJilhitA and the Brahma~as, which declare that
the Phalgunt full-moon was once .the new year's night, we found
that Mrigashiras was designated by a name which, if rightly inter-
preted, showed that the vernal equinox coincided with that asterism
in old times. This was, so to speak, a sort of corroborative evidence
of the truth of the statement in the Taittirtya Satphita. A reference
to the figure will show at a glance that if the sun be at the winter
solstice on the Phalgunt full-moon day, the moon to be full must
be diametrically opposite to the sun and also near PM.lgunt. Uttarll.
PhAlgunt will thus be at the summer solstice and the vernal equi-
nox will coincide with Mrigashiras. With the solstice in Magha,
the equinox will be in the KrittikAs; while when the UttarAya~a
begins in Pausha the eq~inox is in Ashvini. Ashvini and Pausha,
KrittikAs and Magha and Mrigashiras and Phalguna are thus the
correlative pairs of successive year-beginnings depending entirely
upon the precession of the equinoxes; and the facts, statements,
texts and legends discussed in the previous chapters supply us with
reliable evidence,' direct and indirect, of the existence of all these
year-beginnings in the various periods of Aryan civilisation. It has
been further shown that not only the traditions, but also the
. primitive calendar of the Parsis bears out the conclusion we have
deduced from the Vedic works.