Page 26 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

SACIUFICil ALIAS THE YEAR 13
was at first secured by intercalating twelve days at the end of every
lunar year, or whether the days were allowed to accumulate until
an intercalary month could be inserted. The former appears to
have been the older method, especially as it has been utilised and
retained in the performance of yearly sacrifices; but whichsoever
may be the older method, one thing is certain, that primitive Aryans
had contrived means for adjusting the lunar with the solar year.
Prof. Weber and Dr. Schrader* appear to doubt the conclusion
on the sole ground that we cannot suppose the primitive Aryas
to have so far advanced in civilisation as to correctly comprehend
such problems. This means that we must refuse to draw legitimate
inferences from plain facts when such inferences conflict with
our preconceived notions about the primitive Aryan civilisation.
I am not disposed to follow this method, nor do I think that people,
who knew and worked in metals, made clothing of wool, construct-
ed boats, built houses and chariots, performed sacrifices, and
had made some advance in agriculture,t were incapable of asc~r­
taining the solar and the lunar year. They could not have deter-
mined it correct to fraction of a second as modern astronomers
have done; but a rough practical estimate was, certainly, not beyond
their powers of comprehension. Dr. Schrader has himself observed
that the conception of the year in the primeval period was formed
by combining the conceptions of the seasons.:t If so, it would not
be difficult, even for these primitive " Aryans, to perceive that the
period of twelve full moons fell short of their seasonal year by
twelve days. Dr. Schrader again forgets the fact that it is more
convenient, and hence easier and more natural, to make the year
begin with a particular season or a fixed position of the sun in the
heavens, than to have an ever-varying measure of time like the
lunar year. Lewis, in his Historical Survey of the Astronomy of
the Ancients, quotes Geminus to shew that '' tile system pursed
by the ancient Greeks was to determine their months by the moon

• See lndische Studieo, xviii. 224, and Dr. Schrader's observa·
tioos thereon in h1s Prehistoric Antiquities of Aryan Peoples, Part
iv, Chap. vi, pp. ·3o8-1o.
t For a short summary of the primitive Aryan civilisation, see
Peile's Primer of Philology, pp. 66, 67; also Kaegi's e.igveda, translated
,by Arrowsmith pp. u-20.
t See Pre. Ant. Ary. Peoples, translated by Jevons, p. 305.