Page 34 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

SACRIFICE ALIAS THE YEAR 21

the southernmost point, " I am of opinion however, that deva-
yana and pitriyana, or devaloka and pitriloka were the only terms
used in the 9ldest times. ·It is a nat.ural inference from the fact
that the word uttarayaTJfl, as such, does not occur in the ~i~eda.
The fact, that Vi~hftvin was the central day of the yearly saira,
further shows that the sacrificial system was coeval with the
division of the year into the paths of Devas and Piqi.s. After a
certain period the beginning of the year was changed to the winter
solstice, and, it was some .time after this change was made that
the words uttaraytl1JIJ and,dakfhi~yana came to be used to denote
the solstitial divisions of the year. But devayana and pitriyana
could not be at once divested of the ideas which had already
become associated with them. Thus while ne~ feasts and sacri-
fices came to be regulated according to uttardy01JfJ and dakfhi~a­
yana. devaydna and pit riyana with aU the 'associated ideas con-
tinued- to exist by the. side of the new system, until they became
either gradually assimilated with the new system or the priests
reconciled the new and the old systems by allowing option 'to ·indi-
vjduals to follow whichever they deemed best. We must therefore
talce great care not to allow the idea of uttaraya1Ja, as we now
understand it, to obscure our vision in "interpreting the early Vedic
traditions, and that too much care can never be taken is evident
from the fact that even so acute an astronomer as Bhaskaracharya
was at a loss to correctly u~derstand the tradition that the Utta-
dya~a was the day of Devas. In his Siddhanta Shiromapi he
raises the question how the uttarAyapa, as it was generally under-
stood in his day, could be 'the day of the Devas. He admits that
the celestial beings on Meru at the North Pole behold the sun
(during aU the six months) when he is in th~northern hemisphere
(vii. 9 ) and these six months may therefore be properly calied
their day. • But the word uttarayana was then used to denote the
period of six months from the winter to the summer solstice; and

• In the Surya Sldchanta .xii. 67 it is said that "At Meru Gods
behold the sun, after but a single rising, during the half of his revolution
beginning with Aries;" while in ::dv. 1) the u ttariya~a is said to
commen·ce "from the sun's entrance into Capricorn . The author,
however, has not no.ticed the tradition that ·rhe Uttarlylll}a is the day
of the Devas and the apparent inconsistency arising there-from.
Perhaps he understood the tradition in its true sense.