Page 36 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

SACRIFICE ALIAS THE YEAR 23

months of the year. • If the tradition is, therflfo~e, as old as it
is represented to be, it is impossible to reconcile it with the later
meaning of uttarayar.w as commencing from the winter solstice
and this would then furnish an additional ground to hold that
in early times the Uttaraya~a began with the vernal ·equinox as
stated in the Shatapatha Brahma~a.
I have stated above that when the commencement of the
year was altered from the vernal equinox to the winter solstice,
uttarayar.w either lost its older meaning or was rather used to
denote the solstitial division of the year. But this is not the only
consequence of that change. With the year the beginning of the
annual satras was also gradually transferred to the winter 'solstice
and the change was complete when the Taittirtya Satphita was
compiled. In fact had it not been for the passage in the Shatapatha
Brthma~a it would have been impossible to produce any direct
evidence of the older practice. When the beginning of the satra
was thus changed, the Vish1i.vAn day must have gradually lost its
primary meaning and co~e to denote simply the central day of
of the yearly satra.
The old practice was not however completely forgotten and
for the purpose of the Nakshatra-sacrifices the vernal equinox
was still taken as the starting point. Thus it is that Garga tells us
that " of all the Nak~hatras the Krittik§.s are sai.d to be the first
for sacrifical purposes and Shravi~b~hA for (civil) enumeration."t
Bu.t even this distinction appears to have been eventually lost sight
of by the later writers and all references to uttarayar.w were under-
stood to be made solely to the six months from the winter to the
summer solstice, an error from which even BhAskarAchArya did
not escape, though he percclved the absurdity caused by it in some
cases. At the present day we on the southern side of the Narmada
begin the year at the vernal equinox for all civil purposes, but still
named 'day' and ' night ' with a qualifying word to mark then special
nature? The h.istory of langnages shews that when people come across
new ideas they try to name them in old words. The UttarAyQ.a and the
Dak,hi'Qlyana may have been thus conceived as God's day and night.
See infra. Chap. V. . ·
• Quoted in Narrien's Origin and Progress of Astronomy, p. 31.
t Quoted by SomAkara on Ved. Jy. 5. ~ :q 6lri -~ ~
ti~ Ji'l~ ad'iftr ~ ~ I