Page 178 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

CONCLUSION 163
Praj!lpati, Kowever, was punished for his unusual conduct and
there the matter ended for the time being. I may also refer here to
the ancient mode of deriving the word Rohi~t. The Arabs called
it Al-Dabaran or " the follower " evidently because it came next
after the Krittikas. * But the Hindus called it Rohil}t, " the
ascended " inasmuch as they noticed that the sun gradually ran
towards it in oldest days. It has been suggested that we should
explain the legend of Prajapati by reference to the daily rising of
Rohi~i. Mrigashiras, and Rudra in succession. But this explanation
hardly accounts for the filet why Prajapati was considered as
literally running after RohiiJ.i in an unprecedented way. Surely we
cannot suppose that the Vedic priests were ingnorant of the fixed
position of these constellations, and if so, we cannot accouut for
the fact why they considered Prajapati as running after and
thinking of living together with Rohi~i unless they had. noticed
the actual -recession of the sun towards Rohi~i owing to the
equinoxes. The tradition of Prajapati and Rudra is thus compara-
tively speaking a later tradition though it seems to have been
completely formed before the separation of the Greeks and the
Parsis from the Indi~n Aryas.
But the question, which was dropped at this time after puni-
shing Prajapati, was again taken up when the equinox had receded
to the Krittikas. The' season had fallen back by one full month
and the priests altered the year beginning from the Phalguni
to the Magha full-moon, while the' list of the Nak~htras was made
to commence from the K:rittikas, instead of from Agrahayal}a.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that the change should
have been quietly introduced when we see that Varahamihira
did the same in the fifth century after Christ when the Ashvint
system was introduced.t The calender was mainly used for the
sacrificial purposes, and when the priests actually observed that
the sun was in the Krittik'as, and not in Mrigashiras, when day
and night were equal, they altered the commencement of the year
to the K:rittikas, especially as it was more convenient to do so at
this time when the cycle of seasons had receded by one full month.
The priests knew that the year commenced a month earlier in·
older days, but like Varahamihira they must have appealed more
t See Whitney's notes to Surya Sid, vi:i. 9, p. xSs.
• See sup ·a Chap. III, p. 28.