Page 180 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

CONCLUSION i65
sion of the rainy season. from Bhadrapada to Shravapa and from
Shravapa to Athadha ( Sankhyayana Brahmapa i. 3) and finally
from Asha~ha to Jye~htha, as at presept, thus fuliy .::o.wbora.t-
ing the recession of the beginning of the year or the winter solstice
from Chaitra ·to Phalguna, from Phalguna to Magha, and from
Magha to Pauth. The evidence of the recession of the seasons i~
not, ho'ftver, as complete as that of different year-beginnings inas-
much as there are various local causes besides the precession vf
the equinoxes that affect the occurrence of the seasons. The season
in the Central India and Central Asia cannot, for instance, be the
same, and if the Aryas came into India from the North-West, the
very change of locality must have caused a corresponding chang\
in the seasons. The evidence of the change of seasons canno,
therefore be supposed to be so reliable and couclusive a:> ~hat ol
·the successive changes in the beginning of the year above
mentioned.
Lastly, there remains only one question to be cuns1dered. I·
the Vedic period here determined consistent with the- traditii)n'.
and opinions entertained about it by the ancient anei modern
scholars? I think it is. I have already referred to the remarks o;
Prof. Weber who, though he regards the KrittiU evidence as vague
and uncertain, yet on geographical and historical grounl1s arn ve~
at the conclusion that the beginnings of the Indian literature nHt'-
be traced back to the time when the Indian and the Iranian Arya'
iived together; and this opinion is confirmed by the fact tt:.;t tltn,
are Yashtsin the Zcnd Avesta which may be considered a-; 'renrf'-
ductions' of the Vedic hymns. Dr. Haug considers that this con
dition may be satisfied if we place the beginning or tl,e \'t,i;._
literature in 2400 B. C., •but he was not cognisant of the fact tlwt
the vernal equinox can be shown to have been in Mngash1ras a!
the .time when theParsis and the Indians lived togttlJ>.·: ;.. ;1<e li.;;L
of this new evidence, there is therefore no reasonable objection for
carrying the periods of the Vedic literature further hack by over a
thousand years or to about 4000 B. C. This period i ~ f;J;tt-~~
consistent with the fact that in 470 B. C. Xanthos c•f ,,.A;1 ~o,·~!
dered Zoroaster to have lived about 600 years before ~;i c Tro_h
War (about 1800 B. C. );t for according to our c<~. ; ('l!h t ;nn tl-

• Dr. Haug's Intr. to Ait. Br., p. 48.
t See Dr. Haug's Essays on Parsis p. 298.